Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Choice for me, but not for thee

As anybody even remotely interested in national politics is aware, ethics investigations are all the rage these days in Washington. The latest casualty: House Democrat John Conyers, who has been accused by some former staffers of violating various ethics rules, including being required to baby-sit and chauffer his kids, one of which went to the Cranbrook School, a private school in the Detroit area. According to this, tuition at Cranbrook will run nearly $18,000 for grades 1-5, $19,280 for middle school, and $21,730 for high school. All this reflects rather badly on Conyers’ stance on school choice.

At a “Stand Up for Public Schools” rally a few years back, Conyers decried educational choice as a “scheme” which “will only harm our public schools” and pointed instead to the sort of “real” school reforms drawn from the educational unions’ playbook – teacher training, reduced class size, and school construction. “It is vital,” he said then, “for parents, educators, and community leaders to join together to strengthen Detroit’s public schools.”

While some bloggers have noted the hypocrisy, we aren’t terribly surprised–after all, look what public teachers do!