About ten years ago, there was a Saint Paul city council rep – it’d probably be redundant to note that he was a “progressive” – who was a died-in-the-wool public school-support machine. Looooved those public schools. Hated hated hated homeschools and charter schools and private schools. Thought school choice created separate, unequal school systems.
Naturally, the councilperson’s son went to Saint Paul Academy.
“Progressives” have given any number of examples of such hypocrisy; Chelsea Clinton and the Obama kids would never be allowed in a public school, even as their parents fought against meaningful school choice for the children of the less fortunate.
Anyway – Matt Damon, outspoken supporter of more tax funding for the schools that are supposed to be good enough for all us proles, isn’t going to risk his own children in the public education cesspool:
Actor Matt Damon is a strong supporter of America’s public schools. Just two years ago, the star spoke passionately about the importance of public schools at a Washington DC “Save our Schools” rally. In fact, the actor is so impressed with public school teachers that he has demanded they receive a pay raise. That passion and conviction, however, does not apply to Damon’s own children, who will not be enrolled into the Los Angeles public school system.
And the excuse is almost too stupid for “progressives” to buy.
I said “almost” (emphasis added):
In an interview with the Guardian published Saturday, Damon revealed that he had just moved to Los Angeles from New York, but that he didn’t “have a choice” when it came to putting his four daughters into private schools. The multi-millionaire did say that it was “a major moral dilemma” and then made the bizarre excuse that the public schools aren’t “progressive” enough.
That was a leap in logic not even Jason Bourne could make.
White Democrats love naive comparisons that justify more spending and government regulation but it’s not that simple. I say “white Democrats” because black Democrats favor Republican education policies like school choice.
Emery the problem with your thought is that the “black” democrats will vote for the Democrats because they have been taught that Republicans are racists and don’t care about them while they haven’t picked up that the Democrats are supporting the education policy of the KKK.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
Black democrats with, ahem, a very prominent exception or two, among them another hypocrite who, like his Democratic predecessor, sends his kids to Sidwell Friends.
I’d actually suggest, though, that it goes beyond hypocrisy. It’s a simple refusal to think; OK, if I’m not willing to send my kids to a war zone, why should anyone else?
If one looks closely at where charter schools have been successful in poor and otherwise underprivileged neighborhoods, there is always a stress on a cultural shift. Uniforms are worn, language is formalized, discipline is strict, middle class career expectations are indoctrinated into the children of working class parents, children spend long days and parts of weekends physically and mentally separated from their families and neighborhoods. In short, children are removed from the bad influence of their parents and their local peers. This can be accomplished on a small scale with a group of children with highly motivated parents, but to accomplish it on a large scale will bring on cries of cultural imperialism and racism.
Even amongst the middle class (perhaps more so), parents are the first to complain when school days are lengthened, homework is harder, and sports and other extra-curriculars are de-emphasized in favor of academics. Most parents in the rich world want their children’s lives to be easier than theirs were. But in today’s global economy, only children who work much harder than their parents are likely to achieve the same middle class lifestyle. The era when you could maintain a secure spot in the middle class after a high school career smoking pot, playing football, and dating cheerleaders started to end some time around 1980. A lot of middle class parents don’t accept how hard their kids need to be working, and set expectations way too low.