Taking the Whip to Washington, D.C.'s Underprivileged Black Children

Michelle Rhee—the tough broad who spent nearly four years as D.C. schools chancellor in a pitched battle against the corruption-plagued, incompetence-ridden Washington teachers union to reform a rotten public school system—was forced out today by mayor-elect Vincent Gray in what surely must be seen as a kind of triumph for the union and a potential tragedy for the city’s underprivileged, mostly-black schoolchildren. 

To think about the stunning contempt with which so many D.C. public-school teachers treat their students and the struggles of those students’ parents to see their children actually educated is to be disgusted: These people are earning salaries and pensions keeping (a semblance of) order in classrooms year after year, while their precious charges wither in front of their eyes, warehoused and untaught by them—or, alternatively (which is worse?), taught lies and told lies by them.  

To think about the absolute indifference to this calamity of members of Congress on the left side of the aisle—to say nothing of Mr. And Mrs. Obama’s breezy unconcern—is to be no less disgusted: These people are tucking their own cute little kids safely away in private schools, many of them, but they “believe” in public education for the city’s beleaguered black children and actively deprive them of any way out.

This is a whipping, plain and simple. Miss Rhee tried to wrest away the whip and got a lashing from Mr. Gray and the union that filled his campaign coffers for her pain. I guess D.C.’s poor black children will be taking their lashing from the president of the United States, to wit, “It took time to free the slaves.”