As I was saying. In reference to the WeeMichelles. Do you think that their is not a qualitative difference in the educational career of a student who attend an elite private school and one who went to a very good public school?

Do you think that children of home attendants and security guards can move into society's upper echelon en masse just by parents being involve in the public schools they attend? Do believe sole reason children of privilige are successful is because of their parents are so involved in their education? Do you think that all privilidge children parents are involved in their education?

I do not come from parents of educators. I come from parents who are laborers who did not complete high school. They instilled in me and my 7 siblings the importance of education. I have a master's degree. Not only am I am an educator but I am a classical violinist. I play in a community orchestra. I have 3 other siblings with advance degrees. All my siblings have done much better than my parents. All but one have careers. That one sibling is disabled. My parents with limited resource and education raise their children to become successful. As you pointed out many parents of modest background raise their children, to do great things. I concur with that. I am living proof of that.

My point is not all educational settings are equal, not by a long shot.

Which setting do you think that a child will have the best chance of life time success with all things being equal, your rural school, my working class urban school or an elite private school in DC?

I don't have to imagine it…I went to it..in rural Alabama…we had old books and antiquated equipment….but we had parents that cared and didn't let us go to school hungry. The poorest of the poor were fed before they got to the first class because the village mentality prevailed. The highest level of math in my high school was Trig – not Calculus…we didn't have any AP classes, we had no money other than the government funds because the majority of the county didn't have any property that could be taxed. Yet, from that little poor school we've had graduates from many Ivy League schools as well as other colleges and universities, alum very successful in every facet of the business world. So don't give me that its all about how much money the parents have. Both my parents taught for 30 plus years, half my own family is in education from the college level to pre-K, class room and administration..and the one single complaint I've heard from ALL is the lack of parental involvement, period.

I can point to an elementary school where the ANNUAL PTA BUDGET is $2 million dollars and another school where the PTA budget is $5000. I know of schools with multi million dollar endowments and I know of schools that have the NewYork State Office of Probation and Administration of Children Service workers housed in it. In all of these schools, parents are involved in theirs children's education. In all of these schools you have a lot of parents who are not involved.

What I have noticed is that the group of parents with the highest social currency (money, political, professional and social connection availabilty of time) provide their children with the optimum education

Imagine a school in which the parent body consist of judges, politicians, senior partners in law firms and brokerage firms, doctors, university provosts, investment bankers, board of trustees, and CEO's.

Imagine a school in which the parent body consist of accountants, business managers, school teachers, social workers, lawyers, small business owners and police officers

Imagine a school in which the parent body consist of home attendants, fast food workers, bus drivers, the unemployed, people on public assistants, clerical workers, and security guards.

What kind of clout do each of these groups have? What kind of resources do they have at their command? What avenues are available to them to rectify any issues they may occur in their children school? What are their collective educational vision for their children? What are the power dynamics between each group of parents and the school their children attend?

My children go to a racially mixed middle class (with a pretty decent social currency) elementary school in New York. I transferred my kids from an all Black working class (with a not so strong social currency) elementary school that is academically superior to the school my kids presently attend. Both schools have strong parental involvement. Last year my daughter applied for middle school. She was accepted to all the top middle school she applied to. That did not hold true for my two friends who children attended my daughter''s former all black academically superior elementary school. My friends are no less involved in their children education than I am in mine. In fact we are all school teachers. I would dare say that their children are academically stronger than mine.

My work in pupil personnel opened up my eyes to the politics of education. I am privy to the behind-the-scene operations that most parents, teachers, and school administrators are not. There is more to the success of a child's education than parents involvement to his or her child academic standing.

“Every kid should get the best education their parents can afford to give them.”

Your statement sums up the problem with how we've come to view education in this country over the last few decades. For countries with an ethic of mass education (which supposedly the US has), every child should get the best education possible regardless of their parents' ability to pay. That is why we have a public education system in the U.S. in the first place, instead of the pay for education systems that countries like Colombia have. When the quality of education a child receives is determined almost entirely by the financial resources of their family, what you have is a system that reinforces and transmits inequality across generations (again, look at the level of inequality in Colombia).

The whole situation is a conundrum. If the public school system in a city is truly terrible, it would be unfair and unrealistic to expect that families with means would not avail themselves of better educational opportunities. But make no mistake, it was the flight of middle class families out of the public education system (starting of course with white middle class families in the 60s and 70s) that precipitated the decline of the public school system in many large urban cities. The public school systems will never get better as long as they remain the repository of only the poorest and least advantaged children.

That said, I think it's entirely appropriate to expect that our President's children will attend private schools. Regardless of questions of questions of quality or safety, the presidency carries a great amount of prestige and privilege and the Obama girl's education should reflect that as much as their residence (the White House) does.

A school has to satisfy hundreds, thousands, of paying customers, whether they pay via taxes or tuition. A parent has one or several “paying customers” to satisfy and as such they can be more narrow in their criteria. To make a child's wellbeing and future into a political or sociological experiment is unforgiveable and it's really none of our business, as long as it's not impacting our ability to make the same sort of decisions for our families.