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

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1992 by Debarah Fallows

The connection that public school offers is compelling: Children bring home to their parents the concerns facing the schools, large and small, from classroom incidents to system-wide issues. They bring home their impressions of friends and classmates, their families, and teachers--the sense of the community of the school they attend. The problems facing our nation's schools would be brought directly into the living quarters of the White House on the first day Chelsea had one of Washington D.C.'s teacher-furlough holidays.

The principle would apply even if she went to the suburban schools, because these schools are also grappling with the basic issues of how America educates its children. In the face of budget cuts in the past few years, Montgomery County schools have eliminated cost of living pay-raises for teachers and cut athletic expenditures and most all-day kindergarten programs. The county has continuing debates about eliminating class periods, increasing class size, and reducing support staff. The Clintons don't have to be connected to the most troubled school system to be connected to the public-school predicament as a whole.

Second, parents and educators alike know that one of the important ways schools either stay good or get better is through parental involvement. We can all say we are concerned about America's public education. Even Dan Quayle bragged about his public school background when he got the chance. But as busy people, we all know that we care with our hearts more deeply and act with our hands, our time, and our wallets in the schools to which we have entrusted our own children. This is only human, and it is as true of the Clintons as it is of my next door neighbors. As first parents, the Clintons have an enormous opportunity to influence their own daughter's school, as well as set the example for America's parents.

Realistically, we all know that Chelsea will receive the best of whichever school they choose-- the best teachers, the best classes. The Clintons, especially Hillary, with her interest and experience in education unleashed, can push for some of the best for the rest of America's children along the way. She can do everything from talking about caring for schools to promoting curriculum changes (like more foreign language study), to insisting on teaching standards and rewards for teaching excellence, to raising student performance standards, to encouraging better textbooks, athletic programs, and more student public service, to addressing issues of "values" which are increasingly wedging their way into academic life.

Chelsea Clinton herself will take with her to whatever school she attends a sense of specialness. It will be "the school where the President's daughter goes." She will be all right, and her school will be all right, just because she goes there. What is exciting is the message this could carry to the rest of the schools in the nation. This is a chance, perhaps, to build a Peace Corps-like zeal about public schools. They are at a good enough starting point, there is good raw material to work with, and there is a good chance for improvement.