As Liam mentioned , we just finished our latest "reporter roundtable" here at Fordham, this time with District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. (More on that in a bit.) One topic of conversation was whether she would try to convince the Obama or Palin families to send their children to DCPS. She said she'd make a persuasive case for her system, but she would never tell any parent where to send their kids to school.
So where would the Obamas or Palins go if they attended their "neighborhood" school? See for yourself; if you go here and type in "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW," you'll learn that the Obama girls would go to Stevens Elementary School at 21st and K Streets, about five blocks from the White House. Except, whoops, Rhee closed that school over the summer. So now it looks like they'd head to the Francis-Stevens Educational Center, which as far as I can tell used to be Francis Junior High at 24th and N in the swanky West End neighborhood of DC. That's at least a mile away, though. If they want a closer public option, they might consider the SAIL Public Charter School , at 16th and L (right next to Fordham's offices), a mere three blocks from the White House. But SAIL specializes in serving students with "learning differences," so that might not be what the Obamas want for Malia and Sasha.
And what about the Palins? The Vice President's home is located within the Naval Observatory which, as far
as I can tell, doesn't have an official address, but it's located across the street from the New Zealand Embassy at 37 Observatory Circle, NW. Plug that into the schools search engine and it looks like seven-year-old Piper would attend Stoddert Elementary School in the leafy Glover Park neighborhood and thirteen-year-old Willow would finish up middle school at Hardy Middle School , while bride-to-be-Bristol would attend Woodrow Wilson High School .
The Palins look much better positioned to use the DCPS system, and not just because they already send their kids to public schools now. It simply appears that their neighborhood options are better, as Stoddert and Hardy both receive a perfect 10 rating from GreatSchools.net, while Francis-Stevens gets a 7. (Both families would end up at Wilson High, which sports a respectable 9 on the GreatSchools.net scale.)
