Saturday Rick Santorum added another demon to his list - public education!

He made the claim that  public education was anachronistic and stated that public schools were factories.  He also stated that "most presidents home-schooled their children in the White House..."  

Now, home schooling your children requires that you do quite a bit of research so that you can assure that you are giving your children the factual information that they will need out in the world.  Which is what makes his statement concerning the presidents and home-schooling so ironic.

There have been 43 presidents since President Cleveland served at two different times.  One hundred and forty one children of presidents were either dead, too young for schooling or already adults when their fathers became president.  Twenty-two were school age during their father's presidency and attended school.  Two, the youngest Lincoln boys were tutored at home during the Civil War.  The two youngest Grant children  spent some time in school and some time tutored. One, Oscar Folsom Cleveland was adopted by another family and it's uncertain if Thomas Jefferson's children by Sally Hemings were educated.

Two definite, two occasionally.  Even at best, that's only four  out of twenty-four children possible.  That's sixteen percent of the school aged children of presidents were homeschooled.  Even worse,  only four out of the total one hundred and seventy two children of the presidents makes for two percent of all presidential children who were home-schooled while living in the White House.

I know, I know there will be Santorum supporters who say, "You're just pickin' on him, he misspoke."  That's part of the problem - Rick makes comments that people take as fact and he only walks back on them when they come back to bite him.  That's not the way to teach a child or educate voters likely to put you in the White House as neither group is likely to question you because they look up to you.  

If you aren't up to the responsibility of giving correct information to either students or voters, better to leave it to the real professionals.