Politician speaks up about education

I am somewhat passionate when it comes to public education even though my kids have long graduated. My argument remains the same - throwing dollars after failed policies may make us feel better about ourselves but it does a terrible disservice to the students. We are afraid to point the finger of blame where it should be directed - toward the parents who shirk their duties and take little to no interest in the academic achievement of their children.

Well, into this heated discussion comes none other that the Honorable Barack Obama who as a black man is uniquely able to say the unspeakable. And to his great credit, he's telling the truth regardless of the political correctness.

In a meeting with education union officials, the discussion among the nameless and faceless Democratic presidential candidates was the same boring rhetoric of the past. Too little funding, too much racism, etc.

But Obama must have shocked those lazy union teachers when he told them that money was not all that was lacking in educating America's poor and minority children. Parents, he said, had a role too.

"It is absolutely critical for us to recognize that there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African-Americans to take personal responsibility to rise us out of the problems we face."

The crowd sat stunned.

"Even as I fight on behalf of more education funding, I have to also say that if parents don't turn off the television set when the child comes home from school and make sure they sit down and do their homework and go talk to the teachers and find out how they're doing, I don't know who taught them that reading and writing and conjugating your verbs was something white."

Here's where Obama was pointing his finger. Washington, D.C., schools have 65,000 black and 3,500 white students. The public schools there spend more per pupil than any district in the country - $13,000 per student. Yet test scores there are among the very lowest in the nation. The same can be said for the school districts in Philadelphia, the Bronx in New York and the Los Angeles school district. The issue in these schools is not racial imbalance and it most certainly isn't funding. It's a massive failure by parents to accept responsibility. Unfortunately, it takes a minority like Obama to point out the silent, dirty little secret in public education. Meanwhile the other hypocritical candidates still say we need more money and more support from the government. Of course, they say these words as their children attend private schools far away from the unclean masses they pretend to support.