The Issue: Public-school advocate Leonie Haimson’s decision to send her own children to private school.
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New York public-school activist Leonie Haimson has illustrious company in exercising private-school choice for her kids while opposing it for less-fortunate families (“School Choice — for Some,” Editorial, April 5.)
President Obama has tried to kill private-choice vouchers for needy kids while sending his daughters to an elite private school.
Among the 45 percent of US senators who have sent their children to private schools are many who staunchly oppose initiatives to help underprivileged families gain that same advantage.
It should be a parent’s right to take a kid out of a bad school and put him or her in a better one. But why should that power be reserved principally for the 1 percent?
Robert Holland
Senior Fellow
for Education Policy
The Heartland Institute
Chicago
The fact that Haimson sends her child to a private school does not make her any less sincere or hard-working an advocate for public schools.
Class size is smaller in private schools, despite her battles to get the Department of Education to act on the proof, experience and common sense that lower class size is advantageous to learning. Should she leave her own child in the dark because the DOE refuses to see the light?
Haimson is no hypocrite; the DOE is, for pretending to champion the rights of kids while betraying them.Ron Isaac
Fresh Meadows