Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- First lady-to-be Michelle Obama may drive a Ford Escape hybrid and dress in J. Crew rather than the Valentino preferred by the self-defined down-home Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. But she is unlikely to burnish her populist credentials by choosing a Washington public school for the Obama girls, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.

Unlike other elected officials embarrassed when the personal deviates from the public, the Obamas aren't even pretending to consider public schools, in spite of President-elect Barack Obama's praise in one of the debates of celebrated Washington school Chancellor Michelle Rhee. No matter where they stand on vouchers or charter schools, rarely does a member of Congress or a Cabinet official, Democrat or Republican, send their children to public school.

The last White House child to go to public school was Amy Carter and it wasn't exactly normal. She couldn't go outdoors for recess and even the shortest of the Secret Service men couldn't help being obvious.

Most first families arrive at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with their children grown, or close to it, so social competition is limited to the usual sports, such as who will have the first couple over for a small dinner. The late Katharine Graham performed that honor for the Bushes; Pamela Harriman for the Clintons.

Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, who has picked up the mantle from Graham, is likely to host the Obamas at some point. She told CNN that she doesn't picture the Obamas ``swanning around town,'' but they're Kennedy-esque, likely to have more state dinners than the Bushes, who had only six, and enter into the life of the city.

Bridge to Somewhere

There's nothing like networking through your offspring when they could be the bridge to the new administration. The play dates! The birthday parties! The bonding on the sidelines at soccer. For classmates of the Obama children, there isn't just the prospect of a sleepover in the Lincoln Bedroom, but of pillow fights there without so much as writing a check to the Democratic National Committee.

The Obama children are the youngest to move into the White House since the Kennedys and are setting off a parallel lane for social and professional climbers not seen since the parents of Sidwell Friends School battled the parents of Maret School to have the young Chelsea Clinton matriculate.

Making the Cut

On Monday, almost as many cameras were trained on various schools as on the South Lawn of the White House for the Obamas' first visit to Washington since the election. Leaving her husband to affairs of state, Michelle Obama visited two of the three private schools said to be on her short list. Sidwell is one along with Georgetown Day School, where minorities make up 35 percent of the student body and Obama polled 89 percent in the school's mock election. Also on the shortlist is the Maret School, home to many Obama staffers and, notably, once home to Courtney Carlson, my daughter.

All are paradise compared with my parish school, with its asphalt playground and nuns serving lunch, or most of Washington's public schools. There are slight variations of class and culture among them analogous to those that distinguish say, the Hamptons from Martha's Vineyard.

The car pool line at Sidwell runs to Mercedes and BMWs. At Maret, where journalists' children abound, and at GDS, where students call teachers by their first names, you see more Volvos and Priuses. At Sidwell you might see a Palin Valentino. At Maret, Banana Republic.

Money Matters

Power, not money, used to be the coin of the realm in this once sleepy Southern town. Now it rivals New York for both. The anxiety that your child's feelings might be hurt at T-ball, mixed with heightened achievement standards, makes Washington as prone to the over-the-top $50,000 lower-school graduation parties and ski trips to the Alps as anywhere on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

It's become the epicenter of helicopter parents, spending the GDP of Brazil on the back-to-school wardrobe and pressuring admissions officers as if anything less than the Ivy League of nursery schools will doom junior to a land-grant college.

Here's where the Obamas might help. Turn down that invitation for the girls to appear on ``Hannah Montana.'' Serve microwave popcorn and M&Ms on movie night. Keep them out of the clothing advertised on the backs of pouting, world weary children in the pages of the New York Times Sunday magazine. Reverse snobbery is awful, but not as awful as snobbery.

Going Private

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty on MSNBC on Tuesday said he hoped the Obamas would send their girls to public schools. He sends his own to a private one. I fault no one for not making their children symbols. I wanted to be with those people who buck up the public schools, drive non-gas guzzlers and take their recyclable cloth bags to the grocery store.

But that was until my daughter was in third grade in a neighborhood school with a mediocre teacher.

Having a child makes you do things you never thought possible. And so I became the person I didn't want to be and prayed that Courtney wouldn't put a square peg in a round hole and fail her private-school admissions test.

My daughter is rooting for the Obamas to choose her alma mater. I'm more pragmatic. If Malia and Sasha go to Maret, all children will want to go to Maret and it will make it that much harder for my grandchildren to get in when the time comes. All politics is personal.

(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 13, 2008 00:03 EST