Say Anything Blog

Hillary Clinton continues her push to perpetuate the government’s monopoly on education in this country despite having opted her own child out of the public school system.

When the Clintons came to Washington, D.C., in 1993, they were given a choice of any public school for their daughter. Being responsible parents of means, they decided no public schools were adequate and sent her instead to the elite private Sidwell Friends School. That led Wisconsin Rep. Polly Williams, sponsor of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, to quip that “Bill and Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be the only people who live in public housing who can send their kid to private school.”

But in 1995, President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have allowed low-income D.C. parents to use public funds to send their children to private schools. (A subsequent version of that program was signed into law by President Bush.) Now, candidate Hillary Clinton continues to earn a scarlet “H” for hypocrisy by continuing to stridently oppose school choice. Vowing in a speech to the National Education Association “never to abandon our public schools” - speaking apparently as a politician rather than a parent - Sen. Clinton charged, “There is simply no evidence that vouchers improve student achievement.”

No evidence, eh?  Unfortunately for Hillary there is evidence of school choice policies working wonders for education.  In Florida then Governor Jeb Bush instituted a policy that allowed parents of children enrolled in failing schools to use tax dollars to choose another school for their kids to attend.  The results were, in a word, startling:

While the percentage of white third-graders reading at or above grade level has increased to 78% from 70% in 2001, the percentage among Hispanic third-graders has climbed from 46% to 61%, and among blacks from 36% to 52%. Graduation rates for Hispanic students have increased from 52.8% before the program started to 64% today; and for black students from 48.7% to 57.3%. Minority schoolchildren are not making such academic strides anywhere else.

Unfortunately, this school choice program was shot down by a lawsuit from (ironically) minority groups and the very same teachers unions who are such staunch backers of Hillary.  Which tells us exactly where Hillary’s heart is when she’s stumping against school vouchers.  She may have gone the private school route for her own child, but when it comes to our children she’s more worried about keeping the campaign donations from those teachers’ unions coming in.