First choice: why Chelsea Clinton should attend a public school - President-elect Bill Clinton's daughter

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1992 by Debarah Fallows

When Bill and Hillary Clinton move to the White House in January, they'll face a personal decision that confronts any relocated family: Where should their child go to school? They're not likely to hear my pitch--that they should send Chelsea to a public school in the metropolitan area--from many of their friends who live in Washington, D.C.

The Gores send their children to private school. So do the Quayles. So does Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander. In fact, none of the 67 top education policymakers in the Bush administration sends his or her kids to D.C. public schools. Instead, the Clintons will be hearing well-deserved praise of the academics at the National Cathedral School, of the sincere service ethics of Quaker philosophy at Sidwell Friends School, of the respect for individualism at Georgetown Day School, among others.

Most of the D.C. public schools near the White House may look like unreasonable choices to the Clintons. Chelsea's new neighborhood public school would be Francis Junior High. The students at Francis are thoroughly excited by the prospect of having Chelsea enrolled with them and the Clintons can be sure she would be warmly welcomed there. Academically, Francis is not as strong as Thomas Jefferson Junior High School, which is less than a mile from the White House in Southeast Washington. Jefferson ranks first in the city in math scores for ninth-graders and is the recipient of a million-dollar sponsorship from COMSAT to boost its math and science programs. Unfortunately, Jefferson has virtually no white students. It is one thing for parents to value an integrated environment for their children, as the Clintons have done in sending Chelsea to public schools in Little Rock. It is something else, and less fair to any child, black or white, to put her in a situation where she constitutes such a tiny minority.

Academically as good as Jefferson but more diverse are Deal Junior High School, Hardy Middle School, and Wilson High School, all of which are within two or three miles of the White House. These three schools are integrated, academically strong, and reasonable choices for parents who value public schools but also don't want their child to be a pawn for their beliefs. Chelsea can get a solid public school education without being turned into a martyr.

SATisfaction guaranteed

Recommending public school in Washington, D.C., throws a block that stops most parents in their tracks. Over the years, these are some of the comments I've heard most: "I wouldn't consider it for my children"; "we don't want to sacrifice our children to political principles"; "we bailed out after a few years." From the other side, there is a similar tone: "private school wimps"; "spoiled rich kids"; "no confidence in their own children." When I suggested to editors at The Washington Post an article recommending that Chelsea go to public schools, the response was immediate: "We have zero interest in this idea." It is one of those issues, like the conflict between working and non-working mothers, that most people who are on opposite sides just can't discuss, even with good friends.

What these polarized opinions overlook is that there are reasonable possibilities open to the Clintons. Consider Deal Junior High in Northwest Washington, where of the 950 students in grades seven through nine, half are black, about a quarter white, the remainder mostly Hispanic and Asian. Deal offers six foreign languages: French, Spanish, Latin, Chinese, German, and Russian. Some eighth grade students study with a humanities team that packages English, history, art, and music. There are sports ranging from football to golf to fencing. There is a chorus, a gospel choir, glee club, band, orchestra, ski club, and much more. Hardy Middle School is smaller and therefore has fewer programs than Deal, but its program is strong enough that the Carter family chose to send Amy there. Graduates of both Deal and Hardy eventually move to Woodrow Wilson High School, next door to Deal. Year-in and year-out, Wilson produces National Merit semi-finalists and sends graduates to Ivy League schools.

For the D.C. school system as a whole, security is a problem. In some schools like Eastern High School near RFK stadium, students (but not visitors) must pass through metal detectors and have their bookbags checked. At others, like Hart Junior High in Southeast Washington, a security guard sits with a sign-in register at the front door. The shooting by an outsider at Wilson High School four years ago proved to be an isolated incident rather than an example of frequent violence.

At schools like Hardy, Deal, and Wilson, crime and physical safety are not serious worries. But, because of the spillover from the system-wide watchfulness about security, students even at these schools can't hang around after school if they don't have business there.

Each family makes its decisions about schools based on a variety of complex factors. The Clintons may feel that, on balance, the D.C. public schools are not right for Chelsea. When my family returned from living in Asia, that is how we felt for our children. Our son wanted to continue studying the language he had struggled to learn in Japanese public school, and while the public schools in D.C. didn't offer Japanese, one in Maryland did. The Clintons, no doubt, have complicated factors of their own to balance. But they have the option, which we chose, of staying in the public system by sending Chelsea to public school in Montgomery County. They would be hard-pressed to find better public schools anywhere. The middle schools in Montgomery County feed into some of the best high schools in the nation. Students who live in D.C. can attend schools in Maryland, and students who live in Maryland can go to schools in D.C., if their parents pay the equivalent of the system's per-student annual spending.