Hillary's self-pity

Hillary Clinton: "Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field, but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there."

Andrew Sullivan: "Is she f***ing kidding me? ... Clinton has more privilege, more clout, more intrinsic unearned advantages in this race than any non-incumbent Democrat in living memory. And still she failed. And still she whines. There are moments when you almost feel pity; and then you realize what a petty shameless narcissist she is."

Comments

[texasyank]

Pretty much, yeah.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Yep

[Mad Max, Esquire]

I'm not sure how "Victim in Chief" plays in the Presidential race. I always thought we wanted Presidents who were strong. Not whiny wimps who boo-hoo about playing fields not being fair.

While she is out there doing this, Barack Obama is out challenging African-Americans to stop having video games and TV raise their children and to stop having Popeye's for breakfast. Whatever you think of Obama, you have to admit he says what is on his mind even when its not popular.

[gahrie]

Andrew Sullivan is calling someone else "petty shameless narcissist"?

Has he no sense of irony?

[Andrew]

Whatever you think of Obama, you have to admit he says what is on his mind even when its not popular.

So why is he turning his back on the growing school choice movement and falling in lockstep with the same teachers union garbage that's left inner city schools to rot in despair? Why isn't he zeroing in on the massive damage done by high rates of welfare dependence and illegitimacy? If you want to talk about prominent black men unafraid to speak to the real issues hurting blacks today, Bill Cosby and Charles Barkley might fall in that category, but I sure as hell don't consider Obama to be in that category. He's no different than any other Democrat: throw money at schools, kiss the teachers unions' rings, and whine about what [black] Americans are eating, drinking, smoking, and playing.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Andrew-

School choice is a fraud. There is a reason why private schools are afraid to take the same standards tests required of public schools. It's because most private and charter schools are just as bad as public schools. The only difference is private schools can control the percentage of economically disadvantaged students attending them. If you have spent any time in the south, you know many white families moved their kids out of public schools when they became desegregated. "School choice" is another name for the "Southern Strategy."

As for welfare dependence and illegitimacy, you make it sound like a "black problem." Ever spend much time in the trailer parks and apartment complexes of Red State America? It isn't just a "black problem."

"School choice" is another name for the "Southern Strategy"? Your head is so far up your own ass that you are talking out of your armpit.

[Andrew]

Funny Mad Max, I went to a private school through 4th grade, and one of my favorite playground buddies at that school was black. I wonder if his parents sent him to that school as part of that whole "Southern Strategy" thing.

Anyway, more than two-thirds of African-American children grow up without a father in the home. If that's not a cultural crisis for blacks, I don't know what is.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Andrew-

As I mentioned, I said "a percentage of economically disadvantaged students." Sure you had a black friend - ala Steven Colbert - but how many blacks were at your private school compared to public schools in the area? Also, was your school in the south?

I'm not talking out of my ass on this. I have friends who grew up in Louisiana and Florida and they basically told me their parents didn't want them going to school with black kids, so they sent them to private school. Just look at the school system in New Orleans. The white kids are in Catholic schools, the black kids are in public schools.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

I just went to GreatSchools.net and looked up some student percentages for private schools in the South...

East Holmes Academy
West, Mississippi
Student Population: 99% white

The Lakeside School
Eufaula, AL
Student Population: 97% white

Bethel Christian Academy
Cocoa, Florida
Student Population: 82% white

These are just a few examples. School choice is an effort to appeal to white Republican parents in the South. In areas where School Choice is offered, DC, for instance, the adoption by black parents is low. The Republicans know this.

And those percentages all reflect racism? It could not be that more whites can afford to send their kids to private schools than blacks? You are some kind of idiot.

[Alasdair]

Mad Max - how do those statistics handle kids of Asian ethnic origin ? Lots of places lump them in with White ...

My daughters went to (#4 is currently going to) a private all-girls school - it's expensive, but not nearly as expensive as them not getting a great education ... one of the best things about the school is the fact that the kids are effectively being educated in a "colour-blind" environment ...

Perhaps more black kids could go to those same "white" schools you are ranting about, if the parents of the black kids had access to some form of vouchers to help with the expense ...

In our case, it wasn't so much that we could afford to send our kids to the private school - we just knew we couldn't afford NOT to do so ... their education is way more important than me driving a car less than 10 years old ... (my car is about to turn 12) ...

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Great Schools breaks kids out by Asian as well, those percentages are for white students.

I don't know how many of those bashing this position grew up in the South. I did. Most (and I am not saying all) of the private schools in the South do not provide a superior education to public schools. Many are there for the purpose of getting white kids out of black schools.

Is there some truth to black families not wanting to send their kids to these private schools? Yes. If you were black, would you want your kid going to a school that is 99% white? Some would, but most wouldn't.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Something for you skeptics to read and consider..

"For example, in 1970, when a federal court ordered desegregation of the public schools of the Pasadena Unified School District (in Pasadena, California), the proportion of white students in those schools reflected the proportion of whites in the community, 54 percent and 53 percent, respectively. After desegregation began, a large number of whites in the upper and middle classes could afford private schooling and so pulled their children from mixed public schools. As a result, by 2004 Pasadena was home to sixty-three private schools, which educated one-third of all school-aged children in the city, and the proportion of white students in the public schools had fallen to 16 percent. The superintendent of Pasadena USD characterized them as being to whites "like the bogey-man"[19] and mounted policy changes and a publicity drive to induce affluent whites to put their children back into the public schools."

Do the inner city blacks who want school choice so they do not have to send their kids to failing public schools participate in the Southern Strategy as well?

[Mad Max, Esquire]

No, they don't. The percentage of black families who use the vouchers in test cities is small. That's the rationale behind School choice. It is to reintroduce public funding of segregation without breaking the law (such as equal protection under the law). Poor black families in the inner city aren't going to drive their kids to white private schools in the suburbs. The Bush Administration and authors of School choice know this.

The rationale behind school choice is that all parents should have the power to choose the best and safest schools for their children, period. It has nothing at all to do with being a pretense for reintroducing segregation. You assume idiotic motives. You are a dumbass.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

And you would be wrong.

If the idea was to give parents the choice between bad schools and good schools, School Choice would require private schools to demonstrate that they were, indeed, a better alternative to public schools. There is no requirement for this and little, if any, evidence that most private schools are superior to most public ones. It is merely assumed that private schools are better.

The truth is, the idea of "private school" conjures up images of Sidwell Friends and other elite, top-tier schools. In reality most private schools have teachers that are less qualified than their public school counterparts. Often, these schools use curriculum from organizations such as Bob Jones University that simply does not pass academic muster.

As for re-introducing segregation, the segregation is already there, especially in the South. What the School Choice advocates want is to help people who are already sending their kids to private school to pay for it.

You obviously know nothing about private schools, inner city public schools, or the reasons why parents would prefer to send their kids to one over the other.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

You obviously know nothing about my background in the education realm. This isn't an opinion I have developed from reading Kos. I have been involved professionally in this area for many years. I encourage you to contact researchers at Teachers' College at Columbia University or the Lynch School at Boston College and ask their opinion on the level of education provided by private schools versus public schools. I think you will be surprised by the answers you get.

Sure you have.

[Brendan Loy]

I often disagree with Mad Max on things, but this "sure you have" nonsense is pretty damn lame. You don't know who Max is or what his job is. (Neither do I.) So why would you pretend otherwise? Lame!

[Alasdair]

Mad Max - the temptation to go for the trivial ad hominem and ask in which school you are an assistant janitor is enormous - but I won't go there ...

Cite some of the research to support your low opinion of private schools, or don't bother hinting loosely at it ...

Some simple Googling brings up a couple of studies ... anti-private-school study and study in response to anti-private-school study ...

The latter explains, when using the same data, the conclusions were different ... "Methodological Problems with the NCES Model
The NCES analysis is at serious risk of having produced biased estimates of the
performance of public and private schools. The study’s adjustment for student
characteristics suffered from two sorts of problems: a) inconsistent classification of
student characteristics across sectors, and b) inclusion of student characteristics open to school influence." ...

I do know that *my* kids went to private school because I wanted them to have a great education ... your mileage (and motivations) may vary ...

[Mad Max, Esquire]

Alasdair-

I don't discount that there are some good private schools, just like there are some good public schools. However, as the NAEP data indicate, there is ample evidence out there that private schools - even without the methodology being adjusted - are, as a whole, not significantly better than public schools.

For some background, I have worked with NAEP and NCES for years. I am very familiar with assessments. A difference of 7 points on NAEP is not seen as statistically significant within NCES. If someone claims that it is, it is because it has gone through the political side of the Department of Education. To be fair, the Clinton Administration did the same thing.

The fact is, for the most part kids' home environment is a bigger contributor to their success in school than the school environment (unless, of course, we are talking about the worst of the worst inner-city schools). Family income and the level of the parents' education have much more to do with academic achievement than whether a school is public or private.

I regrettably have to say, Alasdair, that your kids' success has more to do with your support and involvement as a parent than the fact that they were in private school.

[Alasdair]

Actually, the overall parental involvement is indeed probably the most isgnificant factor - and, at this private school, I wasn't a token parent getting involved ...

I significantly dispute the assertion, however, that private schools are not held to as high standards as the public schools ... unless, of course, those assertions are trying to weasel past the higher standards to which most private schools are held - by the parents who pay the tuition ...

Oh - and all the testing in the world is worse than useless when the tester is clueless ... and that goes all the way from Gesell testing through SAT and equivalent ...