right in the nation s capital. here s our chief white house correspondent chip reid. reporter: president obama s daughters, seventh grader malia, and fourth grader sasha go to an elite private school where tuition is more than $30,000 a year. today, the president, a strong proponent of public schools, was asked if he thought his daughters would get the same high quality education in a d.c. public school. i ll be blunt with you. the answer is no right now. the d.c. public school systems are struggling. reporter: the president said it s not just the d.c. schools. across the nation public schools are falling behind. he called for more money and a longer school year, but said that s only part of the solution more important, he said, is an aggressive program of education reform, but that puts the president in a political bind because much of his reform program has been resisted by the teachers unions, a powerful democratic interest group. if president obama is going to ha
democratic interest group. if president obama is going to have a reform agenda that really works and really makes a difference, he will have to take the teachers unions on at least in part. he doesn t have to disagree with them on everything, but he has to make them hurt at least a little. reporter: areas where the unions have fought the president s agenda include the race-to the-top program this n which the states compete for federal dollars for their own reform programs, using student test scores to evaluate teachers, even to set their pay, and firing teachers for poor performance. the head of the national education association, whose 3.2 million members make it the largest union in america, down played the difference and said he agrees with the president that the status quo is unacceptable. we support rigorous and fair evaluation systems. i can tell you educators don t want incompetent or ineffective teachers in the classroom. reporter: some advocates of education