For the Obamas, it’s not private vs. public

The Obamas can be grateful that it looks like they’ll be spared the debate that dogged the Clintons during their transition to Washington — public versus private school for their children.

Chelsea Clinton had attended public school back in Little Rock, Ark., and the Clintons’ liberal supporters had hoped she would do the same in Washington, perhaps hoping that her mere presence would improve the District of Columbia school system, which, despite its reputation, does have some very good schools.

Amy Carter attended Hardy Middle School and apparently got a good enough education that her father referenced her opinion on nuclear-arms control during a 1980 presidential debate.

Private school

The Obama daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, attend private school in Chicago, and while their mother, Michelle, was in Washington this week she looked at two of the best in the capital, Sidwell Friends and Georgetown Day.

The Clintons took a certain amount of flak for choosing exclusive and pricy Sidwell, a school accustomed to teaching the children of the prominent. They later said that at a private school Chelsea would have her privacy, whereas she might not at a public school on public property.

There was a certain risk that she might become a poster child for competing interests in urban education, but early on the Clintons and the press struck an implicit bargain: They would not use Chelsea for political publicity and the press would leave her alone, an arrangement that held throughout President Clinton’s eight years in office.

At the time, the Clintons said they chose Sidwell because it was a good school, academically challenging and, in the end, they were doing what they thought was best for their daughter. That last is the only reason that really counts.

Scripps Howard News Service