I'm starting to feel a bit lonely in my corner on this, but I just can't relent.

Over at the AFT's blog, Michele weighs in on this whole dispute about whether public figures should be required to send their kids to bad public schools. She believes the "standard-bearers for public education" should send their kids to public schools, including people who work for teachers unions.

I have to repeat that I just don't think anyone - including those who work for teachers unions - should be forced to sacrifice their kid's education to make some sort of political statement.

This is especially true for politicians, the Sharptons, CFE backers, other labor leaders, etc., most of whom in NYC wouldn't dream of allowing their kids to slip through the cracks in the average city public school.

And they shouldn't.

They need to set the standard for all parents: that they should never, ever put up with crap that is offered to them (if they really believe it is crap.) This is public education afterall, so the public should be a bit more vocal about what it will and won't accept.

In fact, they should do more than just send their kids to the best schools they can find - they should come clean about why they did so. (Credit here to Gifford Miller, who in last year's mayoral primary race refused to say for sure in a debate that he would sacrifice his kids to the local neighborhood public school.) One reason it is so hard to do anything substantive about crappy schools is the "standard-bearers" are often so reluctant to even admit publicly that they are crappy. (I only wish Miller's answer in the debate would have been, "Hell no will I send my kid to a school that isn't any good, but that doesn't mean I won't do everything in my power to make every public school the kind of place we'd all be tripping over to get our kids enrolled.")

Michele does make a point that you can always move to someplace with a cul de sac if you absolutely must wear the public education flag on your sleeve, but that is kind of like half-hearted support for public education anyway, no?

For me, the hypocrisy still comes down not to where you send your kids, but the extent to which you are blocking other parents from exercising the same sort of choices.

NYC Educator (whose site includes an awesomely spectacular Joseph Heller quote) weighs in here.