Despite opposing proposals to increase market forces’ impacts on schooling through the implementation of taxpayer-funded educational vouchers, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) sent his own children to $45,000-per-year private school in New York City, NY.
The Dalton School – described by Page Six as “uber-exclusive” and “upper crust” – has educated Anderson Cooper, Chevy Chase, Sean Lennon, and Claire Danes.
Franken was widely celebrated by left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlets for his questioning and subsequent criticisms of Betsy DeVos during the latter’s confirmation hearings for secretaryship of the Department of Education.
The Daily Caller reported that Franken received $10,000 from the National Education Association (NEA). The NEA – essentially the foremost advocate for teachers’ unions – opposes all free market reforms in the marketplace of education that would increase accountability for teachers and education administrators via free market pressures.
In a 2012 interview with Harvard Magazine, Franken claimed to have studied at Blake, a Protestant charter school. Blake’s current tuition runs nearly $30,000 from grades 1 through 12.
Franken subsequently graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts.
In early February, Franken took to the Senate floor to oppose DeVos’ nomination as Secretary of Education. He criticized DeVos for apparently not having sent any of her four children to public schools, implying that this diminished her qualifications for the role of education secretary: “She has never sent a child to a public school.”
Franken accused DeVos of “[having] a long history of undermining public education.” DeVos and her family, said Franken, pushed an “ideology that would steal funds from public school in order to fund private and religious education.”
Taxpayer-funded education vouchers under the guise of “school choice,” said Franken, would not fully cover the costs of a private school tuition or associated costs of transportation, school uniforms, or school supplies. He described such a proposal as amounting to wealth redistribution from low-income families to families “who could already afford to pay for private school.”
Increasing market forces’ impacts on the education marketplace via “school choice,” concluded Franken, “represents a serious threat to the public school system.”
H/T Brandon Morse at The Blaze
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