On “Obama vs. McCain on Education” on Obama’s campaign site, Obama notes that he “believes free, quality public education is the heart of the American promise” while McCain “will take much-needed money away from our schools to fund private schools instead. Without unpacking the loaded language used (i.e. “free” and “take”), Obama proved just how hypocritical he is when early this week his two girls walked up the steps to their school. A private school.

So, in essence, Obama is saying that it’s alright for tens of thousands of other kids in the District (ranked last in the country in a report released today) to go to public schools but he’s going to send his own kids to a private school, which has an annual tuition cost of $28,000 per child.

Granted, like any other parent, if Obama has the means, he should do what’s best for his kids, not knowingly send them to a public school for political gain (to say that he stands by public schools) but he should be honest and admit that public schools are failing. If they weren’t, then why did he choose a private school?

Unfortunately private school is an option that many parents simply don’t have. Not only does the government take a large chunk of what little money they earn, but it then mandates by force of law that their kids attend school for a certain number of years. Not to mention the stranglehold the National Education Association, perhaps the most powerful unions around, has on the education process (read: no competition and perverse incentives).

For more on this, check out the Progressives Against Progress and Teensploitation overviews on Bureaucrash Social. And for even more, check out Separating School and State: How to Liberate America’s Families authored by Sheldon Richman and published by the excelelnt Future of Freedom Foundation.