WASHINGTON — Rahm Emanuel is taking a page from his former boss President Obama and sending his kids to a top private school instead of the public schools he now oversees as Chicago mayor.
Emanuel told CBS News 2 in Chicago he would send his three kids to the University of Chicago Laboratory School, where Sasha and Malia Obama went before moving to Washington and enrolling in the tony Sidwell Friends prep school.
Tuition at the well-regarded school in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood runs $22,000 for grades 1 to 4, $24,000 for grades 5 through 8, and $25,000 for high school.
Emanuel has made reforming the city’s troubled schools a top priority.
Emanuel, who earned a rep as a tough enforcer as Obama’s chief of staff and in the Clinton White House, had a feisty exchange with a Chicago reporter Mary Anne Ahern on Wednesday, walking out on an interview when she pressed him to reveal where his kids would attend school.
“My children are private, and you will not do this,” Emanuel told her on the phone afterward, according to Ahern.
After she accused him of trying to bully her, he responded: “I care deeply for my family. I don’t care about you.”