John Fetterman and Women's Choices

What should we think of a politician who adamantly refuses to support helping poor families send their children to decent schools but who sends his own children to one of the best private schools in the state? What word best describes such a politico? "Confused"? "Inconsistent"? "Ironic"? "Hypocritical"?

Trying to come up with the kindest and yet most accurate word is not easy, but it's the challenge that faces anyone who reads this article in the Washington Free Beacon on Democratic senatorial candidate John Fetterman whom we talked about in yesterday's post.

The article, by Chuck Ross, begins with this:

Pennsylvania Senate hopeful John Fetterman (D.) opposes vouchers that let children in failing public school districts attend private and charter schools. But the progressive champion, who lives in one of Pennsylvania’s worst performing school districts, sends his kids to an elite prep school.

Fetterman’s kids attend the Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh, where parents pay up to $34,250 for a "dynamic" learning environment and an "innovative" approach to teaching.

They would otherwise go to schools in Woodland Hills School District, where graduation rates are far below the state average. The local elementary school that serves Fetterman’s town of Braddock is in the bottom 15 percent of the state in academic performance....

[Fetterman] has ... called for increased funding for public schools, though by sending his kids to private school he is diverting funds from Woodland Hills under a state funding formula that awards money to districts based on enrollment.

Fetterman’s children will likely benefit academically from attending Winchester Thurston, though they will be deprived of the racial diversity Fetterman claims to embrace. Woodland Hills is 62 percent black and 25 percent white. Just 36 percent of Winchester Thurston’s students are minorities, though the school has a fully staffed "equity and inclusion" office.

Winchester Thurston has a 100 percent college acceptance rate, and an average SAT score of 1330, well above state averages. Woodland Hills, the district the Fetterman kids would otherwise attend, has just an 85 percent high school graduation rate, far below the state average. Woodland Hills has a 75 percent minority student body.

David P. Hardy, a distinguished senior fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation and co-founder of Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia charter school notes that, "Fetterman could send his kids to [Woodland Hills], but he's got money, so he can send them somewhere else, but the poor people there are stuck going to those schools, and he doesn't give them any way out."

Opposition to vouchers and indeed to any alternative to public schools is opposed by teacher's unions and the Democrat party, both of which claim to be champions of the poor, yet most poor people, and most Americans in general, support school choice:

Fifty-eight percent of Americans—and 69 percent of black voters—say they support vouchers, which have been linked to higher graduation rates. The Pennsylvania State Education Association endorsed Fetterman earlier this year, lauding him for "oppos[ing] tuition voucher programs."

Fetterman touted the union’s endorsement, saying he is "a proud product of Pennsylvania public schools."

The union in April blasted a Republican effort to provide vouchers for families in districts in the bottom 15 percent of the state. The voucher program would benefit students in districts like Woodland Hills, which has three elementary schools that fit that criteria.

Fetterman is certainly not alone among Democrats who oppose school choice but who send their own children to private schools. The Obamas did it, the Clintons did it, the Bidens did it and so did the Pelosis, just to name a few:

Rep. Elaine Luria (D., Va.) has spoken out against school vouchers and charter schools but sent her daughter to a private middle school and served on the board of a private high school, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

House candidate Christina Bohannan (D., Iowa) has criticized school choice while sending her daughter to a private school so she could receive a "personalized education."

It's ironic that Democrats are committed to making sure that women be given the choice to kill their children in the womb and will subsidize both the procedure that does so and any travel expenses the woman incurs. But they will not lift a finger to help poor and middle class women have the choice to send their children to schools where they can actually learn something.

Maybe another question Mr. Fetterman should be required to answer in the current senatorial campaign, in addition to the questions suggested in yesterday's post is, why does he support a woman's right to choose to abort her child's life, but not a woman's right to choose where to send her child to school?