Commentary

Members of Congress Send Their Children to Private School

Obama isn’t the only VIP in Washington that sends his children to private school while denying the same opportunity to disadvantaged children in Washington DC. The Washington Post reports on the Heritage Foundation’s new survey on where Congressional members choose to enroll their children.

A new survey shows that 38 percent of members of Congress have sent their children to private school. About 20 percent themselves attended private school, nearly twice the rate of the general public. Nothing wrong with those numbers; no one should be faulted for personal decisions made in the best interests of loved ones. Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if Congress extended similar consideration to low-income D.C. parents desperate to keep their sons and daughters in good schools? . . .

The gap between what Congress practices and what it preaches was best illustrated by the Heritage Foundation’s analysis of a recent vote to preserve the program. The measure was defeated by the Senate 58 to 39; it would have passed if senators who exercised school choice for their own children had voted in favor. Alas, the survey doesn’t name names, save for singling out Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), architect of the language that threatens the program, for sending his children to private school and attending private school himself.

Reason’s Shikha Dalmia on the hypocrisy of the Obama administration and school vouchers here.