That is really all I have to say about Sidwell Friends. It's a good school. A lot of rich kids go there. A lot of the boys are cute. Aaaaand.. done.

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Sidwell Friends is a great choice - as noted above, I'd definitely want my kids attending a school used to taking care of and integrating First Children into the community.

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Private schools are much better equipped to handle extra security for many reasons. Sidwell Friends has prior experience with the secret service. I think it was probably an excellent choice.

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Then again, that's mostly me dreaming that Malia Obama would go to Banneker Academic High School, where my dad teaches ninth grade history, and I'd get to meet President Obama somehow.

But Banneker does have strong IB and AP programs, sends 100% of graduates to a four-year college, and is 98% African American. It could be an interesting environment for Malia, and plenty of the students come from a private school background.

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Interestingly for me, when I was in private high school in Princeton, I was judged for not being one of the wealthy students. But when I went to Sarah Lawrence, I was judged for not being on financial aid (my parents missed the mark by a very small margin). I spent four years defending my private school education.

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"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence -- moral, cultural, social or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how 'democracy' (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient dictatorships, and by the same methods? The basic proposal of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.' Children who are fit to proceed may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. We may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when 'I'm as good as you' has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish. The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway, the teachers -- or should I say nurses? -- will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men."

~Clive Staples Lewis

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