Failing our nation's children

Waiting for Superman is the new film by documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, director of An Inconvenient Truth, and it should be mandatory viewing for every member of Congress.

As a synopsis on the Fandango movie site says this film "explores the tragic ways in which the American public education system is failing our nation's children. . . ."

Not only do we see children and their parents on the edge of their seats during a lottery that will determine who gets the educational equivalent of a "get out of jail free" card, we also watch the crestfallen faces of those who don't draw the magic numbers for decent schools, a better education, and, thus, a hope for the future. Is this how a poor child's destiny should be decided, by lottery?

During a recent appearance on NBC's Today show, a woman in the audience asked President Obama why he selected a tony private school for his daughters-Sidwell Friends, where tuition is $31,069 a year-over D.C. public schools. He said Sasha and Malia could not receive the same level of education from D.C. public schools that they get at Sidwell Friends.

The president said because of his position "we could probably maneuver" to get them into one of the better public schools, but he said the "broader problem" is that parents without "a bunch of connections" don't have such options.

Nice try, but if he wanted to place his daughters in a public school, no connections would be needed. Jimmy Carter sent his daughter Amy to a public school when he was president. The issue for the Obamas and everyone else with school-age kids is which school provides them the best education?

The poor do not have a choice, other than a lottery. This is immoral.

Members of Congress-mostly Democrats-are channeling the late Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who in 1963 stood in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama to prevent blacks from entering. Today, certain members of Congress are metaphorically standing in schoolhouse doors, preventing the poor from leaving.

Asked for a review of the Superman film, the president said it is "heartbreaking" and that the educational future of children "shouldn't depend on the bounce of a ball." And yet it does and the reason is that too many politicians are in the pocket of the teachers unions, which pour gobs of money into their reelection coffers. Some members of Congress act as if their futures are more important than the future of a child.

The president's professed concern for failing schools is not matched by his actions. According to the Washington Examiner, he and his allies in the U.S. Senate "opted to kill D.C.'s federally funded school voucher program rather than risk sinking the $410 billion omnibus spending bill that will fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year."

In his book Dreams From My Father, Mr. Obama wrote that when he was a community organizer in Chicago, "The biggest source of resistance (to school reform) was rarely talked about . . . namely, the uncomfortable fact that every one of our churches was filled with teachers, principals, and district superintendents. Few of these educators sent their own children to public schools; they knew too much for that. But they would defend the status quo with the same skill and vigor as their white counterparts of two decades before."

Government schools are a monopoly that disproportionately hurt the poor, the very group Democrats claim to defend. That the left does not demand equal opportunity for poor children and their parents is more than outrageous. It is hypocrisy.

I would like to sit with Sens. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin and Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they watch Waiting for Superman and after witnessing what I'm sure would be tears, ask them, "How can you do this to children? How could you let their brains die from intellectual malnutrition and doom them to a life of misery all because you want to please a union?"

Of all the things that disgust voters about Washington politicians, refusing to let poor children escape from failing government schools may be the most disgusting of all.

© 2010 Tribune Media Services Inc.