Obama Is Right In Telling Black Youth To Stay In School But Still Wrong On Vouchers

ABC news reports that Barack Obama took a tough love message to African American youth. "You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil' Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school," Obama told a cheering town hall crowd in Powder Springs, Georgia. Obama said he knows some young men think they can't find a job unless they are really good at basketball "which most of you brothas are not. I know you think you are, but you're not. You are over-rated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA." I wonder whether Obama is using rhetoric like this to differentiate himself from so called black leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Either way, I commend Obama for his "tough love" message to African-American youth. Instilling the value of education and the necessity of doing well in school is critical in all communities, but especially critical in inner city black neighborhoods plagued by gangs and drugs. I agree with Obama and applaud him for his remarks.

I wish I could leave it at that, but something comes to my mind when I hear Obama preach to black youth about staying in school. It is the issue of school vouchers. On February 20, 2008 the Obama campaign released a statement that said "Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers." The statement went on, "Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools." The fact of the matter is that the schools in the inner city are very often terrible, whether it be the environment, the amount of students, the quality of teachers, or whatever else. The daughters of Senator Obama attend elite private schools of the kind that can be accessed by pupils from ordinary families only where there are scholarships or experimental voucher programs. Obama fails to tell his audience this little fact. It is one thing to tell kids to stay in school, which of course they should, but it is another to oppose a policy that would allow many of those kids to move to substantially better schools. McCain rightly says on his campaign website, on the other hand, that "I believe parents should be empowered with school choice to send their children to the school that can best educate them just as many members of Congress do with their own children. I find it beyond hypocritical, that many of those who would refuse to allow public school parents to choose their child's school would never agree to force their own children into a school that did not work or was unsafe."

School vouchers redirect some education funding to individual families rather than to school districts allowing families to select the public or private schools of their choice and have all or part of the tuition paid with the voucher. Of course this does not bode well with the teacher's union which Democrats walk with shoulder to shoulder when it comes to vouchers. One voucher program has taken place in the nation's capital. The Washington D.C. program offers scholarships to nearly 2,000 students which they can use to leave the notorious Washington D.C. public school system for a better private alternative. Over 95 percent of those using a voucher are black or Hispanic. On average they come from families with an annual income of about $18,000. Vouchers give school choice to those from lower income neighborhoods. The Democratic party is painted as the supposed party of the little guy, but when it comes to vouchers they would rather stick with being the party of big government. Researcher Patrick Wolf revealed the findings of his evaluation of the D.C. program. Students appear to have somewhat higher academic achievement in reading. There have not, however, been gains in math. When it comes to parents, they are more satisfied with the private schools and the safety provided by them. The maximum voucher amount in D.C. is only about half what is spent per child in the public schools. So even if the academic gains of students on vouchers were not highly substantial, the cost is actually cheaper and the results are at least the same with parents feeling better about their children's education and environment.

Barack Obama is not helping the African-American community by his opposition to school choice. He is telling young poor blacks to stay in school while forcing them to stay in the crummiest ones. It is a blinded commitment to big government and public education over the well being of students and parents. The D.C. program proves that this is not some ploy to help rich folks, but can actually be directed toward and aid poor minorities in giving them choice in education. Obama's children are in elite schools because Obama can afford to choose to send his kids to private school. If he believed in public education he would be consistent and send his own kids to public school. Yet when it comes to other peoples kids he blocks them from having the same choice and opportunities afforded to the Obama children.

Democrats pretend to be pro-choice, but in truth they are not the party of choice at all. They only believe in choice when it comes to the unborn and abortion. They are against choice when it comes to schools. They are against choice when it comes to firearms. They are against choice when it comes to social security. They are against choice when it truly matters.


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