The Obama Girls Go To Washington

In the first place I can’t believe I’m writing about this.  When hundreds of kids are dying of gunshot wounds in urban school districts like Los Angeles each year, when migrant workers’ children are unable to get educations, not to mention the 90+ million children around the world who who don’t even get to go to school at all, consuming thousands of words devoted to which $25,000+/year private school will win the two lovely First Daughters is like living on a marshmallow fluff People Magazine diet.  If I were bulimic, I’d want to vomit.  But.  It was the primary education topic in the media last week: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . . . .

The week started with the Obamas actually considering D.C. public schools.  Apparently, they were “in discussions” with Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Mayor Adrian Fenty.  (On a side note, is it me or is my Edutales being hijacked by Washington, D.C.?  Hello, Los Angeles?  Are you out there?  Do we care about education out here in The Golden State?  I guess we’re just on fire right now.)

In any event, here’s the ten second public-private recap:

*AmyCarter went public *Chelsea Clinton’s a money-grubbing Hillary-supporting politico* you and your kids are symbols* imagine what you could do for public education today* we want Michelle at our PTA meetings* you don’t believe in vouchers so be fair and make your kids do what all the other kids have to do* Remember Yes We Can!?!

*Chelsea Clinton went private* Amy Carter’s a Brown-dropout peacnik nobody* you can’t make your daughters a symbol* better security at private* they’re SUCH higher caliber than public* Your kids already went private in Chicago and you were just a senator then* they’d have to skip a couple of grades if you put them in public* Are you out of your freakin’ mind??!!!

There’s so much at stake here beyond the First Daughters.  Like it or not, the First Daughters are already pawns in The Great Game, Washington Edition.

The question that lies beneath all these debates is: will Washington co-opt the Obamas (as it did the Clintons, summa cum laude), will the Obamas become the Carters (all ideals, few results– at least while in office), or will the Obamas forge a third path?  A path that makes good on the promise of hope and change without falling into the tawdriness of the Clinton Presidency and the ineffectuality of the Carter Presidency.

I have no idea.  I’m doing my work for change and hope locally and watching the big picture unfold.  For once I want to see not what they do but what they say.  Obama’s genius so far lies in shifting the terms of debates, of reshaping the ingrained channels of discourse so that ideas and feelings and actions can move along a fresh path.  Let’s see what he and Michelle come up with this time.

Meanwhile, go see Slumdog Millionaire.  Background the love story, and foreground the lives of those kids.  It’ll put all things People in perspective!

P.S. While I’m plugging, if anyone out there has upper elementary or middle school kids, I recommend one of my son’s favorite books, the Newberry-Award-winning The Watsons Go To Birmingham, 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis.  Try it!

Share on Facebook