Local
Will Obama kids go public?
By: Leah Fabel
Examiner Staff Writer
November 7, 2008
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However, the odds aren’t great.
Malia Obama, 10, and Sasha, 7, currently attend the University of Chicago’s Lab School, a select private institution in a sea of public schools with reputations little better than their D.C. counterparts.
“I’d have to say it’s a real long shot,” said Michael Petrilli, vice president at the reform-focused Thomas B. Fordham Institute. “There are some great elementary schools in the District, and some great charters, but all of them are quite different than the Lab School in Chicago.”
More likely prospects, Petrilli speculated, are Northwest’s Sidwell Friends School, the Maret School or Georgetown Day School, in part for their familiarity dealing with children requiring high security. Tuition for both children would cost the Obamas more than $50,000.
An Obama spokesman declined to comment on the family’s impending decision, and the tight-lipped schools added little more.
“We’d welcome anyone from either party who might be interested,” said Ashley Hair, spokeswoman for Georgetown Day, refusing to discuss the possibility of the young Obamas.
“We’re protective – what can I say?” Hair said.
Ellis Turner, the associate head of Sidwell Friends, said admission inquiries are private, adding that the Obama daughters “would be like having any other kids.”
D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee told a September gathering at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute that she intends to make a persuasive case to the incoming first family.
If the Obama children were to attend the nearest public school, it would be the Francis Stevens Educational Center.
Maurice Kennard, the school’s principal, said he’d be thrilled to have Malia and Sasha as new students come January.
“We are a newly formed school and we are striving to be a model for what K through 8 education should look and feel like in DCPS,” Kennard said, extolling his staff and emphasizing the school’s safe environment.
Rhee’s own children attend Northwest’s Oyster-Adams Bilingual School, another likely choice should the Obamas go public.
“Oyster-Adams would be a great pick,” said Andrew Simon, co-founder of D.C. School Reform Now. Simon added that “on the campaign trail Obama committed to educational reform and D.C. is the central front on that, so he’d be personally involved in the movement.”
