Choice Card

The Barack H. Obama Elementary School in Asbury Park, New Jersey will be closed at the end of this school year due to low enrollment. It may have something to do with the name on the front of the building, but it probably has to do with the fact that the district as a whole has been losing students for the past ten years, dropping thirty-six percent over the past decade. Where have all the children gone?
Some of them have gone to charter schools. Others have opted to pay tuition for a private school. A few have chosen to take the wiggly path of home schooling. Whatever the reason, BHOES will join a list of other schools that couldn't hold their market share. It is doubly ironic since it is Barack H. Obama who sends his own children to Sidwell Friends School in Washington, a private Quaker school that appears a little more refined than your average District of Columbia public school. There are those who suggest that having choices when it comes to your child's education is vital. I would agree with that. Having the money to make those choices is another matter. And when a government program offers vouchers, or incentives, to choose something outside the public school system, it will only speed the evacuation process.
And so the staff of Barack H. Obama Elementary School will join the ranks of those who must now go out and find gainful employment elsewhere. If they would like to stick with education, and they don't mind a bit of a commute, I hear that Sidwell is hiring.