New Republican Majority Looking to Reinstate DC School Voucher Program

At the beginning of the 112nd Congress, the new Republican majority is looking to undo much of what the Democrats did over the past two years. While ObamaCare will be the main target, it won't be the only bill that will have a bulls-eye on it this January:

Newly empowered Republicans may try to resurrect the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which pays for low-income children to attend private school in Washington, when they assume control of the House in January.

"It's definitely something that we're working on," said an aide to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee that oversees Washington. "This is a program that will definitely be looked at in the subcommittee in the next Congress."

Ironically, Democrats will attack this program that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) had axed last year that will help mostly minority students in our Nation's Capitol escape the failing public school system and get into private schools, where studies have shown that these students will fair much better than their public school counterparts, on the basis of not being able to afford it or worrying about taking money out of public schools and redirecting it to private schools.

Public schools aren't failing because of a lack of funding. They are failing because of a lack of discipline in the classroom and little or no accountability on the teachers for individual performances. The teachers' unions are choking the like out of the public schools. We need to give our children and their parents the choice and opportunity to escape such record of failure.

Unfortunately, with a Democratic majority in the Senate and Obama in the White House, it will be a bit of a battle to get this reversed, but I don't believe that it will be impossible. Momentum is heavily on the side of the GOP, and this has been a losing issue for the Democrats in the eyes of the voters for a while now. After all, who would want to be the ones that said no to helping poor minority students get a better education?

Obama, Congress Throw DC Underprivileged Children Under the School Bus

It has been a fear of many poor children and their parents that live in Washington DC that a Democratic-led government would cut funding to a successful program that would give scholarships to children, so they can go to private schools, instead of the abysmal DC public schools. Unfortunately, their fears have recently been realized:

Black leaders say that President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and Congress have put politics ahead of helping low-income children in the District of Columbia by refusing to support a program that allows 1,700 children to go to a private school, including the school Obama’s two daughters attend.
 
Congress did not reauthorize funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) in the 2010-11 federal budget, ending a program that has helped thousands of disadvantaged children attend some of the best schools in the nation’s capitol since its inception in 2004.
 
And while Obama backed Congress’ move to continue funding scholarships for children already in the program until they graduate from high school, no new children will receive the $7,500 annual tuition scholarship.

 
Juan Williams, a Democratic pundit from Fox News, took a huge exception to this turn of events:

“The cancellation of the program, in my view, has been an unprecedented move by the federal government, because this is a historic moment, historic government spending in our nation’s history – a time when the U.S. Treasury is giving hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street bailouts,” Juan Williams, political commentator, said at a press conference held last week at the National Press Club in Washington.
 
“Congress chose, in the midst of all this spending, to end a very small, $13 million dollar program that, according to the Department of Education (DOE), has increased and improved the reading scores of low-income children here in the District of Columbia,” he said.
 
“The move is a matter of politics, in my opinion, plain and simple,” Williams said. “Powerful special interest groups like the National Education Association are clearly committed to destroying and denying these programs as they benefit low-income families and denying them the same opportunities that powerful Washington politicians and privileged people take for granted – the power to choose a safe and effective school for their children.”
 
Williams, a Democrat and regular commentator for National Public Radio, said his own personal story – growing up in poverty with a single mom devoted to seeing that her children got an education – makes helping disadvantaged children a moral imperative. He also said Obama, who attended a private school on scholarships while growing up in Hawaii, should share his passion for school choice.

Arne Duncan, Obama's Secretary of Education, showed little reluctance to pulling the plug on the successful program, while giving a lame excuse:

As CNSNews.com reported, when asked why the Obama administration did not support the reauthorization of OSP, Duncan said in a statement that school vouchers would not fix D.C.’s failing schools.
 
“I appreciate the desire of every family to have the best possible education for their child,” Duncan said. “I also understand that our role is to support children, parents and educators. That is why this Administration is devoting more resources and supports more ambitious reform of our public school systems than any administration in history.”

Let me translate more "resources" means more money. Just like the Democrats always do, they want to throw money at the broken system hoping that the money will magically cure all of the system's ills.

Instead they should change the system and give more money to the students so that they can attend the school's that are doing it better, until the public system improves.

Why won't they do it that way? Two words: teachers' union.

Arne Duncan: DC Voucher to Stay for Now

US schools chief wants DC kids to keep vouchers By LIBBY QUAID – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday that poor children getting vouchers to attend private schools in the District of Columbia should be allowed to stay there, putting the Obama administration at odds with Democrats trying to end the program.

Duncan opposes vouchers, he said in an interview with The Associated Press. But he said Washington is a special case, and kids already in private schools on the public dime should be allowed to continue.

"I don't think it makes sense to take kids out of a school where they're happy and safe and satisfied and learning," Duncan told said. "I think those kids need to stay in their school."

Democrats in Congress have written a spending bill that would effectively end the program after next year. The bill says Congress and the city council would have to OK more money, which is unlikely.

A vote is expected later this week.

Lawmakers, in a statement accompanying the bill, said no new children should be enrolled in the program. And they said D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee should take steps to minimize any disruption for kids as they transition back into public schools.

The issue of vouchers exposes a deep fissure between Republicans, who support them, and Democrats, who oppose them.

Republicans insist that parents deserve a choice if their kids are in failing schools, saying vouchers create competition that puts pressure on public schools to do better.

Democrats, teachers' unions and other opponents say it is impossible to expect public schools to do better while precious public dollars are being siphoned away to private schools.

"I don't think vouchers ultimately are the answer," Duncan said. "We need to be more ambitious. The goal shouldn't be to save a handful of children. The goal should be to dramatically change the opportunity structure for entire neighborhoods of kids."

The voucher program in Washington has been an exception in the debate over vouchers. Because of the sorry state of public schools in the nation's capitol, some Democrats were willing to allow it in 2003 when a Republican-led Congress created the voucher program.

And while big-city school superintendents generally oppose vouchers, Rhee, the schools chancellor, has said she is open to the District's voucher program.

"I don't think vouchers are going to solve all the ills of public education, but parents who are zoned to schools that are failing kids should have options to do better by their kids," Rhee told The New York Times recently.

The D.C. program gives scholarships to about 1,700 poor kids so they can attend private schools.

It was created as a five-year pilot program that is set to end this year. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrote the spending bill language, which keeps the program funded through next year.

It is the only federal voucher program in the country. Other cities and states have similar programs — vouchers are available in Milwaukee, Cleveland, Florida, Utah, Arizona and Georgia — but they are paid for with local tax dollars.

Several states offer tax credits to help pay for private school, but those are also local and not federal programs.

Obama sent mixed messages on vouchers during his presidential campaign. He told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in February 2008 that he was open to vouchers if research showed they work. But his campaign swiftly backtracked, issuing a statement saying Obama had always been a critic of vouchers.

Supporters of the District's voucher program are quick to point out that Obama's daughters attend a private school in Washington, Sidwell Friends School, that has a couple of students who get tuition help through the voucher program.

The voucher program doesn't cover the entire tuition at Sidwell, which is around $28,000, according to the school's Web site. Sidwell and other private schools have financial aid programs that also help pay for tuition.

And the voucher program doesn't help all children in District schools, where enrollment is close to 50,000 students.

When asked about Duncan's remarks, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said the education secretary was "exactly right."

"Senators should listen to him by voting this week to continue funding vouchers for DC schoolchildren," Alexander said.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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My Thoughts

Looks like the Obama administration was shown the folly in getting rid of the school vouchers, or they were shamed from taking away the vouchers the voters. Gibbs' response to the criticism and the sorry attempt to explain the decision shows that it might be the latter. If they really cared about the kids, they would do more than just throw more money into the pitiful excuse for schools.

As an ex-teacher, I have found that the schools' real problems are the lack of student discipline and parental involvment not the lack of money. No amount of money cannot fix either of those problems.

Another major problem is that the Teacher's Union has the Democrats so deep in their pockets that the Dems dare not challenge them or take any money away from public schools to give it to private schools