Our View: D.C. kids don't have Obama kids' freedom

We're pleased President-elect Barack Obama found a school suitable for his lovely daughters. We wish his neighbors' children weren't confined in their choices to one of the nation's most costly and worst-performing school districts.

The Obama children's tuition is about $30,000 per year each at the private Quaker Sidwell Friends' School. We don't begrudge the benefits of an expensive school or that the Obamas made that selection for their children. The Obama children probably will get a caliber of education commensurate with the cost.

But thousands of District of Columbia students won't get even the caliber of education commensurate with what it costs public schools to provide it. Washington is the nation's lowest performing school district. Yet Washington's public school cost is the nation's third-highest at $13,000 per student. Think about that: The highest prices buying the lowest results.

Should the Obamas' new school deliver a sub-par education, they may stop paying tuition and enroll their girls elsewhere. They can afford to.

Most D.C. parents can't afford to. If they enroll their children in a moderately priced private school, they still must continue paying taxes to the public school that failed them, on top of private school tuition.

In Freedom Communcations' founder R.C. Hoiles view, the problem is public education, per se. Compulsory government schools reflect elitist policymakers' dictates, not parents' desires. They also coerce financial support, effectively limiting freedom of choice, all the while insisting it's a noble course.

Hoiles recognized that it is a "wicked . . . violation of the Golden Rule" to impose in such a way on others. Until parents' children are freed entirely from the financial hold of public schools, they at least should be permitted to take the money used to educate them to use at a private school of their own choice. Obama understands the power of educational freedom of choice. We wish he'd advocate it for his neighbors in D.C. and his constituents in all 50 states.