DeAngelis calls out Hofmeister

Many of you are familiar with Dr. Corey DeAngelis, the national director of research at the American Federation for Children. One of the nation’s leading authorities on school choice, Corey received the OCPA Citizenship Award this year. (Gov. Kevin Stitt also spoke at the dinner.)

Corey is not content to let his work appear only in the pages of scholarly journals. (He has authored or co-authored more than 40 journal articles, book chapters, and reports on education policy, including in peer‐reviewed academic journals such as Social Science Quarterly, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, and the Peabody Journal of Education.) He goes beyond that, regularly appearing on FOX News, in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and at countless speaking engagements.

But best of all is his Twitter account.

The first of his tweets to go viral involved none other than Oklahoma’s own Elizabeth Warren. Then-presidential-candidate Warren is a staunch opponent of school freedom these days. But Mr. DeAngelis was curious about her own school choices. So, using her son’s full name and birth year, he searched for school yearbooks on the premium version of Ancestry.com. Lo and behold, he discovered Elizabeth Warren’s son one year had attended an elite private school (where the tuition currently is nearly $18,000 per year). As for Sen. Warren's constituents, let them eat cake!

Warren was just the first of numerous politicians that Corey has called out on Twitter. Just this week he called out state superintendent Joy Hofmeister for her “school choice for me but not for thee” hypocrisy. (First a fake Indian, then a fake Republican.) State Rep. Jacob Rosecrants has also gotten the treatment, as have numerous politicians throughout the country.

Heck, the bully Anthony Moore was so flustered by Corey’s Twitter activity that he deleted one of his own tweets and blocked Corey on Twitter.

Corey’s Twitter following continues to grow and doubtless will expand further now that Elon Musk has taken over and the shadowbanners and algorithm wokesters have been shown the door. (Ben Shapiro says he gained 40,000 followers in just a few hours today.) Be sure to follow Corey on Twitter.

'To them, apparently, only rich people should have school choice'

"Dozens of elected Democrats at the state and national level, who have publicly criticized or actively opposed private school choice measures, have personally benefited in some way from private schooling," Jessica Chasmar reports. "Fox News Digital has highlighted some of the most notable private school choice opponents who either attended private school, sent their children to private school, or both." 

They include President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker, U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria, and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Biden emails show how family spurned public schools

Luke Rosiak has the story.

While teachers' kids get special treatment, other Oklahoma parents are out of luck

In some Oklahoma school districts (Oklahoma City, Norman, and Owasso, for example), "teachers and other staff are allowed to bring their children to physical school sites and the district provides adult supervision of those pupils' on-site 'distance' learning," Ray Carter reports. 

The special treatment given to the children of school staff has not gone unnoticed by other parents. But the perception of special treatment may be the least of the problems created by the program. Benjamin Lepak, a legal fellow at the 1889 Institute who previously provided counsel to 24 elected officials across three counties while working for a district attorney, said such arrangements appear to violate the Oklahoma Constitution.

It's small wonder that Oklahoma voters, by a margin of two to one, say that if schools don’t open in the fall, parents should be able to take their tax dollars and go to another school.

Why indeed?

Rep. Jacob Rosecrants is fighting hard against school choice in Oklahoma

But I just found out he attended a private school

Why doesn't he want others to have similar options?🤔

— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) May 13, 2020

School-choice hypocrisy map

Behold it here.

'Tis the season for utility-bill verifications

This photo I snapped today in overwhelmingly white north Edmond serves to remind us that the black market for school choice is still thriving.

Where the Democratic presidential candidates (and their children) went to school

"Many elected officials and candidates for office oppose school choice options for others, and even prioritize preventing it, but attended private schools themselves or have sent their children to private schools," Tommy Schultz of the American Federation for Children points out.

Candidates for President who went to private K-12 schools:

Bennet, Biden, Buttigieg, Castro, Delaney, Gillibrand, Gravel, Hickenlooper, Moulton, O’Rourke, Ryan, Yang

I expect them all to support private #SchoolChoice programs! https://t.co/yXOOUbYwte

— Tommy Schultz (@Tommy_USA) May 30, 2019

School security for me, but not for thee

"Naturally, his own kids attend an exclusive private school protected by armed guards." 🙄 https://t.co/diHOGPd6CD

— NRA (@NRA) May 31, 2018

Matt Damon wants to limit school choice for your kids

Of course, he sends his kids to posh private schools, the Daily Caller reminds us.

Al Franken opposes school choice

Except for his own kids' $44,000 a year private school.

Indeed, The Daily Caller reports, "at least seven of the 46 Senate Democrats who voted against Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s newly-minted education secretary, currently send or once sent their own children or grandchildren to expensive private schools.

via GIPHY

School district runs school choice program mostly for district employees

Over at the Education Intelligence Agency, Mike Antonucci is amused that one school district, "which has a residency enforcement investigator, also runs a school choice program that mostly benefits the children of its own employees who live outside of the district’s borders."

Education Secretary's children to attend $30K private school

"We wish Arne Duncan’s children every success," The Wall Street Journal editorializes today. "Too bad he didn’t fight for similar options for families not as fortunate as his."

UPDATE: "It has been more than 50 years," Ronda Ross of San Jose, Calif., writes in an excellent letter to the editor, "since George Wallace stood in an Alabama school-house door and sought to deprive minority students access to a decent education. Fast forward five decades and Arne Duncan and the Democratic Party are only lacking the state troopers and the dogs."

Latte liberal

So Obama killed the D.C. school choice program, but sends his own kids to school with a barista. Perfect. http://t.co/IosGeMAUHs
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) October 2, 2014

Rahm Emanuel practices school choice

Albeit grouchily, Andrew J. Coulson points out.

Chicago's new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has followed in the footsteps of President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, choosing to send his kids to the elite private UC Lab School. It's a very good school by all accounts, so it's probably an excellent choice. So why did Rahm get so grouchy when asked about it?

I think it might have something to do with the obvious hypocrisy of cherishing and exercising educational choice for one's own kids while advocating a one-size fits-few state monopoly school system that makes private schooling unaffordable to the majority of your fellow citizens. Just a thought.

Obama acknowledges importance of (his own) school choice

President Obama said yesterday he "wouldn't be president if someone hadn't helped provide some scholarships for my school" as a 10-year-old.

You don't say

"President Obama said Monday that his daughters could not get the same level of education from D.C. public schools that they receive at the elite private school they attend," The Washington Post reports.

Obama's single mom got to choose a private school

'The worst scandal in America'

John Fund of The Wall Street Journal says it's "the education monopoly that keeps poor, inner-city kids trapped in failing public schools."

Quote of the day

... I think that there is probably a special place in hell reserved for politicians who betray our nation's most helpless children for the benefit of a sullen and recalcitrant teacher's union. There they spend all eternity explaining to their victims why they couldn't possibly have risked their precious babies' future in the public school system, yet felt perfectly free to fling other peoples' children into it by the thousands.

-- Megan McArdle, econoblogger at The Atlantic

HT: Mike Antonucci