Posted on 10/23/2007 5:44:28 AM PDT by shrinkermd
When a high school friend told me several years ago that he and his wife were leaving Washington's Mount Pleasant neighborhood for Montgomery County, I snickered and murmured something about white flight. Progressives who traveled regularly to Cuba and Brazil, they wanted better schools for their children. I saw their decision as one more example of liberal hypocrisy.
I was childless then, but I have a 6-year-old now. And I know better. So to all the friends -- most but not all of them white -- whom I've chastised over the years for abandoning the District once their children reached school age:
I'm sorry. You were right. I was wrong.
After nearly 20 years in the city's Takoma neighborhood, the last six in a century-old house that my wife and I thought we'd grow old in, we have forsaken the city for the suburbs.
Given recent optimistic news about the city's schools, this may seem the equivalent of buying high and selling low. And though I don't know new D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, what I know of Mayor Adrian Fenty and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso (a former neighbor) tells me that real change will come, sooner or later, to D.C. public schools.
The thing is, with a second-grader who has already read the first two Harry Potter books, I can't wait the four or five years it will take to begin to undo decades of neglect and mismanagement of District schools, much less the additional time needed to create programs for the gifted and talented.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
And, they think we are right wing hypocrites and bigots.
Liberals always want to sacrifice other people’s children.
Yup. Remember where Al Gore went to school in DC? It wasn’t the public school system.
Even in northern Virginia, James Carville sends his kids to private school.
Holy Batman, another a Liberal that sees the light...at least this idiot has the guts to apologize for his nanny state crimes: “I’m sorry. You were right. I was wrong”
So, the author is now campaigning for vouchers? Right? No?
I guess since he was able to flee to the suburbs, he figures the DC schools can just go about their business. It's not his problem any more. And anyway, the teachers union will still continue to funnel money to the Democrats, so it's all good. [/s]
Another liberal mugged by reality. I’d love to know how many of the big DC elite liberals who are so “supportive” of public education have their children in the DC schools. I’d wager the number is zero.
Its not just the schools people. DC works hard at making life intolerable for minorities (i.e. white people). How do I know, I lived there for 10 years.
So this liberal moves his family to the burbs and a better school. When he and his wife votes to elect liberal school board members, in another 10 to 15 years, the schools in the burbs will be just like the schools in the city he left.
He doesn’t see the light. A fascist bureaucracy is great as long as it’s you ruining other people’s lives. But when it’s other people ruining your life, it’s not as fun.
This guy should abjectly apologize to all the parents and kids who were bused to bad schools because of him and his friends.
Do I understand those schools aren't as good as they used to be?
Just axin'
Yes, look what has happened to New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine, due to the MA libs.
He just couldn’t sacrifice his son to public education. (Mugged by reality.)
He is only looking for an education for his children and trying to do it on the cheap. When enough liberals like him move into the suburbs because things are better, they will eventually elect the same corrupt officials, that will install the same corrupt school boards, that will let in the same corrupt unions, that will run the schools into the same ground that he left. Meanwhile his kids will get their educations before he can ruin it for the next generation.
But has not problem whatsoever sacrificing mine and yours. Afterall, our sacrifice is always for the greater good. ;)
Want a real eye-opener, look at stats on how many public school teachers send their kids to private schools.
My mother went to school in Northern Virginia in the 70s and 80s and she says it was a failure then. And she was in the gifted program. She got her education later when she homeschooled my siblings and me.
Your Republican Party ID card is in the mail...
Other people's children. . .other people's money. It is always the same. . .
. . .Liberalism imagines itself as an 'enforced charitiy' for the greater good. Coercive. . .corrosive application of what should be 'personal choice'; not collective enforcement of charitable ideals which by it's own inauthenticity, this charity is destined to be rendered, null and void.
Can feel this Lib's angst; as he make a private decision for his own son.
Doubt even yet, he really smells the coffee here. . .
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