These answers are clearly in conflict — and call into question either his memory or his veracity. Would King forgive and forget Obama’s “memory lapses,” and cast a vote for him? My own hunch is that, unlike Jeremiah Wright, King would forgive — but I’m doubtful that he would trust our nation to a man who couldn’t even keep his stories straight.
School ChoiceIf Barack Obama were a candidate committed to genuine change for disadvantaged Americans, offering them a choice of better schools for their children would be a no-brainer issue for him.
Indeed, at one point last fall, Obama appeared to be at least somewhat amenable to parental choice, saying, “Let’s see if this experiment [school vouchers] works, and if it does, then whatever my preconceptions, my attitude is you do what works for the kids.” He even added: “I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn. We’re losing several generations of kids and something has to be done.”
For a minute there, Senator Obama seemed to have it right: Kids come first — above teacher unions, above party fidelity, above partisan politics. But no sooner had these remarks been publicized than his campaign issued the take-back, which has become such a common Obama practice that it hardly occasions comment anymore.
The campaign’s “Response to Misleading Reports Concerning Senator Obama’s Position on Vouchers” said, “Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers. . . . Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools.” The statement also asserted — perhaps to reassure those teacher unions, who provide so much of Obama’s campaign money — that the candidate’s education agenda “does not include vouchers, in any shape or form.”
An altogether inconvenient reality for Barack Obama is that school vouchers do indeed work. The Milwaukee
school voucher program for low-income parents is the largest program of its type and has been operating since 1990. According to a recently completed study on the program’s effectiveness, about 64 percent of Milwaukee students who used vouchers to enter ninth grade at ten private schools in 1999 graduated from high school four years later, compared with 36 percent of students in public schools. The study’s author, Jay P. Greene, said it adds to a growing body of research demonstrating that school vouchers have led to improved academic outcomes for students, particularly low-income and minority students in failing school systems.
Yet Barack Obama has closed the door on the possibility of his support for such programs.
Frances Rice, chairman of the
National Black Republican Association, believes that children and the wishes of their parents should have higher priority than teacher unions:
Studies show that a majority of black parents wish to have school-choice scholarships so they can have the same school options for their children as are available to our more affluent citizens. Senator Barack Obama opposes school-choice programs because he puts the special interest of the teachers’ unions above the interest of poor black children trapped in failing schools. Obama even expresses disdain for successful charter schools, calling them a mere “experiment.” Obama is so wedded to the far left-wing of the Democratic Party that he is willing to ignore a basic reality — competition is the key to success in educating our children. Obama is . . . mired in the liberal mind set of the teachers’ unions. . . . Money for education belongs to the people, not the buildings controlled by the teachers’ unions.
King demonstrated, throughout his public life, a stalwart commitment not only to the principle of non-violence, but also to a set of values that put the needs of real people above politics and personal expediency. Would he approve an ideology that condemns children to futures of poverty and dependence out of a misplaced loyalty to powerful unions and their campaign money?
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