According to the Washington Post, President-elect Obama has decided to send his two daughters to the Sidwell Friends School.  This is a wise decision.  Earlier in the week both the Post and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas had editorialized that he should send the children to the District’s public schools.  The pundits were arguing that to do otherwise would be hypocritical because Obama is opposed to school vouchers.

Give me a break.  There is no voucher program in the country that would give enough money to any significant number of parents to send their child to Sidwell Friends or any other expensive private school. Parents who do receive vouchers in the few cities where they are available are gradually finding that most of the private schools they can actually afford aren’t doing any better at academics than public schools.  The President happens to make a lot more money than most of us.  This gives him options we don’t have.  What he chooses to do with his income is his business, and he can spend more on education or more on chocolate bars.  Big deal.

Moreover, can you imagine, Jay, the amount of extra security that we would be paying for if his daughters went to a public school?  Sidwell Friends, which also has experience with the children of “celebrities”, will also be more likely to be able to protect the privacy and relative normalcy of childhood for Obama’s kids.

Jay, will you join me in an “amen” for good parenting, and a chorus of “boo” for editorial writers who are weighing in on a strictly private matter. (As an aside, I see that Matt Drudge is shocked that Obama’s car is not green and is built like the protective tank it is supposed to be.)