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I Just Couldn't Sacrifice My Son (To the Washington, DC School System)
Washington Post ^ | 23 October 2007 | David Nicholson

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia; US: Maryland; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: dc; democratichellholes; education; educrats; montgomerycounty; public; publicschools; schools; urbanwastelands
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The teacher's unions are all liberal bastions. The blues have run the big cities for over 50 years. When a blue parent wants a better school they go to a red area.

And, they think we are right wing hypocrites and bigots.

1 posted on 10/23/2007 5:44:29 AM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: shrinkermd

Liberals always want to sacrifice other people’s children.


2 posted on 10/23/2007 5:49:47 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: shrinkermd
Liberalism sounds great - unless it affects your personally...
3 posted on 10/23/2007 5:52:06 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: AppyPappy

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.


4 posted on 10/23/2007 5:53:03 AM PDT by RexBeach ("Americans never quit." Douglas MacArthur)
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To: shrinkermd

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”


5 posted on 10/23/2007 5:56:39 AM PDT by iopscusa (El Vaquero. (SC Lowcountry Cowboy))
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To: shrinkermd
In the end, though, I couldn't sacrifice my son to an education system that seems at best inefficient and at worst willfully corrupt.

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]

6 posted on 10/23/2007 5:58:03 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (The broken wall, the burning roof and tower. And Agamemnon dead.)
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To: 2banana

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.


7 posted on 10/23/2007 5:59:36 AM PDT by LadyNavyVet
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To: ClearCase_guy

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.


8 posted on 10/23/2007 6:01:27 AM PDT by Jigajog
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To: shrinkermd

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.


9 posted on 10/23/2007 6:04:03 AM PDT by unbiasedtruth
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To: iopscusa
“another a Liberal that sees the light”

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.

10 posted on 10/23/2007 6:06:13 AM PDT by live+let_live
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To: shrinkermd

This guy should abjectly apologize to all the parents and kids who were bused to bad schools because of him and his friends.


11 posted on 10/23/2007 6:06:56 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: shrinkermd
Public-school Ping from a proud product of the Washington DC and Prince Georges County school systems (1951-1964.) An excellent education from both. (Mostly wasted on an indifferent student like me, but it got me into law school and beyond later on!)

Do I understand those schools aren't as good as they used to be?

Just axin'

12 posted on 10/23/2007 6:09:12 AM PDT by Snickersnee (Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?)
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To: unbiasedtruth

Yes, look what has happened to New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine, due to the MA libs.


13 posted on 10/23/2007 6:09:29 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: metmom

He just couldn’t sacrifice his son to public education. (Mugged by reality.)


14 posted on 10/23/2007 6:12:49 AM PDT by HoosierHawk
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To: iopscusa

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.


15 posted on 10/23/2007 6:14:34 AM PDT by Bob Buchholz
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To: HoosierHawk
He just couldn’t sacrifice his son to public education.

But has not problem whatsoever sacrificing mine and yours. Afterall, our sacrifice is always for the greater good. ;)

16 posted on 10/23/2007 6:19:19 AM PDT by truthluva ("Character is doing the right thing even when no one is looking" - JC Watts)
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To: LadyNavyVet

Want a real eye-opener, look at stats on how many public school teachers send their kids to private schools.


17 posted on 10/23/2007 6:20:13 AM PDT by caseinpoint (Don't get thickly involved in thin things.)
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To: Snickersnee

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.


18 posted on 10/23/2007 6:22:04 AM PDT by JenB
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To: shrinkermd
No apology necessary, Mr. Nicholson.

Your Republican Party ID card is in the mail...

19 posted on 10/23/2007 6:22:45 AM PDT by gridlock (ELIMINATE PERVERSE INCENTIVES)
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To: AppyPappy
Liberals always want to sacrifice other people’s children.

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. . .

20 posted on 10/23/2007 6:24:15 AM PDT by cricket
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