President Obama’s 2013 budget request not only recklessly increases funding for the Department of Education by another 3.5 percent (taking the bloated agency’s budget to $68.9 billion), it brazenly eliminates funding for the highly successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
Not that long ago, President Obama said on the Today show that he would not send his own children to D.C. public schools. For seemingly political reasons, Obama has decided to stand in solidarity with the education special-interest groups and against this highly successful school-choice program.
More than 1,600 low-income children are currently enrolled in the D.C. OSP, and receive vouchers of $8,000 ($12,000 for high-school students) to attend a private school of their choice that meets their needs. In a city with the worst-performing and most dangerous public schools in the country, the vouchers have been a lifeline to a brighter future for these children.
D.C. OSP families are used to fighting for what they believe in. In 2009, Senator Dick Durbin included a provision in an omnibus spending bill prohibiting any new children from receiving scholarships unless the program was fully reauthorized by Congress and authorized by the D.C. City Council. The make-up of Congress in 2009 was such that a reauthorization of the voucher program was highly unlikely, meaning Durbin’s provision effectively doomed the program, since no new children were allowed to receive scholarships.
But not even a year ago, D.C. parents were elated to learn that Speaker Boehner had successfully fought for the program’s reauthorization. Poor children in the nation’s capital once again had the opportunity to apply for a scholarship to attend a private school of their choice. That opportunity meant that many children were able to join their siblings in a school that is safe and effective. And it meant that they could be part of an educational option that has had an unprecedented impact on improving their future life outcomes.
The D.C. OSP is highly successful. According to federally mandated evaluations of the program, student achievement has increased, and graduation rates of voucher students have increased significantly. While graduation rates in D.C. public schools hover around 55 percent, students who used a voucher to attend private school had a 91 percent graduation rate.
But, if the president has his way, families will have to fight once again to preserve their children’s shot at a quality education. His administration is clearly not interested in, as they purport, funding “what works,” and children in the D.C. deserve an explanation as to why their educational futures are once again being put on the line.
— Lindsey M. Burke is senior education-policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
There are many many good reasons to eliminate the DOE and provide every school child in the country with vouchers. But to use the fact that the president's children are not in DC public schools is unfair. I'm sure more kids are injured or killed in DC schools than anywhere else (except, maybe, NYC or LA). This is with metal detectors and guards. To send a president's children into such a place as that would be a security nightmare.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut that's not a nightmare for any other parent?
If the president cannot be bothered to look at this issue from the perspective of the parents who want their kids released from the dangerous prisons that get called "schools" in DC, then it's perfectly fair to point out that his daughters get a private education while he destroys that opportunity for the children of others.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou know, when the choices are:
[A] Fix the schools
[B] Declare the schools irrevocably broken, keep them as they are, and keep showering them with tax money. Also, spend more tax money so that kids can go to other, working schools.
[C] Do nothing
I'm going with Option A. I see Obama is entirely happy with Option C, which makes him a dope.
But I gotta tell ya, Option B is insane.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOption A sounds great, but I'm just not sure that the schools that are most broken are actually "fixable".
Public education in some places works really, really well. I live in the DC area. The public schools in McLean VA (FCPS) are some of the best in the country. In fact, they rival most private schools anywhere else. Literally two hundred yards across a river lies the DC Public school system, arguably the worst public school system in the country after Detroit. DC spends more money per pupil than does FCPS but only manages to turn out a negligible percentage of students who are fully literate much less ready for college.
What's the difference? Community. The community in Fairfax County cares deeply about their schools. They - as a collective - value the importance of quality education. These parents get it. The community in DC doesn't. At all.
I'm not sure there is a "fix" for the DC school system - or any big city school system that suffers the same problems that the District does - but if there is a fix, I'm positive it won't be coming from the federal government. If it happens, it has to start with the community that houses those schools. When education becomes as important to those parents as it is to the parents in the suburbs, then these problems will largely go away by themselves. I just wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that to happen any time soon, if ever. This is why I'm more in the "C" camp.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe've been trying to "fix the schools" for 50 years or so and getting nowhere. Add some competition however and they might fix themselves.
I'll disagree on a small point though with Scott Wilson. Community isn't the only problem. Even involved, education-minded parents have trouble dealing with a massive public school bureacracy in the large cities.
Many of these big-city school systems receive most of their funds from the state and/or DOE. The often-poor local families provide relatively little of the funding through property taxes, thus their concerns are more easily dismissed.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>We've been trying to "fix the schools" for 50 years or so and getting nowhere.
No, we haven't.
We've been giving more money to Teacher's Unions and justifying it with press releases that say "we're trying to fix the schools."
I'm talking about actually fixing the schools.
Everyone knows exactly what this means: killing off the Teachers Unions. And if you think that is impossible -- perpetual motion impossible -- then you are an Option B kind of person who just wants to spend more tax money. And I disagree that this is the solution.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNo, everyone doesn't know what you mean - that's why you had to spell it out. If you say "fix the schools" to any representative cross-section of Americans they'll assume that you're just talking about spending money. Remember all thus fuss over adding just a wee little bit of accountability (along with lots of cash) with NCLB?
The way I see it, in the absence of competition bureaucrats will always work to ease their workload and maximize their pay and security. Schools may be the hardest case because we've decided that public education is an essential government service (in some cities you see the same kinds of bloat in the police and fire departments as well). The teachers unions are often part of the problem but the nature of the problem is a lack of competition and accountability.
What do you propose?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Community isn't the only problem. "
I understand the point you're making and don't disagree with it, but I would argue - at least with respect to DC - community is indeed the primary problem.
DC actually had a real reformer making substantive and meaningful changes to the bureaucracy you describe. After a few years of her unquestionable achievement - achievements that had been unattainable by so many that came before her - a mayoral candidate campaigned on a platform that essentially said he was going to stop those changes. The "community" in DC agreed with him. Days after the election, that education reformer resigned in lieu of firing.
They're now heading back to the direction of the same old same old because that's exactly what the community wanted. There is no fixing the DC school system, not so long as the local DC residents have anything to say about it. That's the reality, but I'll cede that may be a reality that's unique to DC. I'm not familiar enough with the other larger urban-area schools to know for sure.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou know, if accurately portraying the issue matters, Option B should read:
"use tax money to allow increasing numbers of poor kids to opt out of the dysfunctional public system and attain success elsewhere, thereby proving that policies and methods in the public system contribute heavily to its dysfunctional results, ultimately leading to the emergence of political will to overthrow the current entrenched "education" interests (that benefit from the status quo and bitterly oppose all efforts at meaningful reform) and dramatically improve the public system."
Directly pursuing Option A has been the plan for decades. It hasn't worked, and it will not work, because ideology and self-interest make the very people tasked to accomplish Option A reject the necessary steps out of hand.
Option B is an effort to use competition to indirectly FORCE the result of Option A. It might work. It might not. But it is anything but insane.
The very possibility that Option B might work is exactly why the left opposes it, while simultaneously burning piles of taxpayer money to support cowboy poetry festivals, uneconomic wind farms, electric cars that no one wants to buy, and cell phones for welfare recipients.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf there are people in DC who want Opportunity Scholarships, they know what to do. Stop voting for Democrats.
But they won't. Because no matter how many times Democrats promise jam that they have no intention of delivering tomorrow--jam that they sometimes admit to having eaten themselves--morons will vote for Democrats and liberals.
So to h**l with them, let them and their children suffer.
Maybe when the Democrats finally manage to reduce them to slavery--by THEIR vote--they'll understand.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGotta keep the 99% down!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDo unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. Make as your moral norms norms that would apply to both others and yourself. The Golden Rule. Buddha. Immanuel Kant. Eleanor Clift said several decades ago that Washington politicians (and one could add pundits) do not have the moral right to oppose vouchers, when they send their own kids to private schools. Despite claims that a politician could not send his or her own kids to the dangerous Washington, D.C., schools, President Carter sent his daughter to a government school there. Whatever the city, the daughters of President Bush were educated in government schools; and one of them taught in government schools. It was President Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy who got the small concession of vouchers in No Child Left Behind, but only for Washington, D.C. (Washington, D. C., has some of the worst-performing schools in the nation together with some of the highest per capita expenditures.) Senator Edwards and so many other politicians did not sent their kids to non-government schools. In shepherding the elimination of the vouchers, Durbin said that they were an insult to the teachers in the government schools. Boehner had students from those schools as guests at a State of the Union Address. President Obama, of course, did not. He sent his girls to an elitist U of Chicago school. His wife had a sinecure job at a related hospital; some say her job was to try to convince people in the neighborhood, who were poor or not rich, not to go to that hospital. Her job was eliminated as soon as she left. In Washington, Obama's kids went to the same private exclusive school as did the daughter of President Clinton (Clinton's daughter just got a possibly sinecure job with NBC). The teachers' unions in Washington, D.C., were very upset about the head of the government schools there--she was featured rather often on PBS Lehrer's News Hour, and that was because she is so creative and competent. So the teachers' union got the mayor of Washington, D.C., who supported her, thrown out of office, leading to her inevitable resignation. Little did they suspect that Boehner would get the funding back after Durbin got rid of the vouchers; but President Obama is violating the maxim and the moral standards uttered so well by Eleanor Clift some time ago. Getting rid of the vouchers would mean that in Washington, D.C., he wouldn't even have to bother to try to force the non-government schools to provide for insurance that pays for contraception, abortifacient pill, and sterilization.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe left is oddly pro-choice in everything. They want a woman to always be able to choose, even up to Born Alive. But if the baby survives, then government should decide everything else: school, headstart, nutrition, housing, light bulbs, job training, food stamps, cell phone plans... heck he even told that woman last week to send him her husband's resume. He'll find you a job!
This is why Santorum repeats the mantra "Obama thinks he's smarter than you". He does.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAt the same time he is ending an $8,000 subsidy to help poor kids get an education, he wants to give a $10,000 subsidy so rich people can buy Chevy Volts.
Does this seem right to you?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRight? No. But from a political stance it makes sense.
Volt subsidies help Union auto workers.
Eliminating the school vouchers help Union school teachers.
The rest of us? We get stuck with the bill and the poorly educated children in our midst.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDear participants of the discussion !
Dear Lindsey M. Burke !
I do understand your concerns about the education "system" .
However, the discussion would be empty without a reference to the book
by Robert Weissberg "Bad students, not bad schools".
External Link
Your respectfully, Florida resident.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe doesn't want voucher kids in school with his kids.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo all inner city parents in DC whose kids attend bad schools:
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
Your left-wing Democrat President "hearts" you!
No, really! He does! Most of you share his skin color, and don't have lots of money. So, the left wing Democrat president can be assumed to "heart" you.
And, never mind he just erased a golden opportunity for too few students, an opportunity that some of us think should be expanded.
Don't judge people by what they do, but only by their skin color and their bank accounts. That's how Obama thinks, and it's why he just canceled this program.
He cares more about the campaign contributions from comfortable, white teachers union members than he does about the educational opportunities for inner city kids.
HE HEARTS YOU! And he has funny ways of showing it while you're not looking.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd the reason for taking money earned by Oregonians, Texans, Alaskans and Illinoisans and using it to help residents of the District of Columbia send their kids to private schools even though DC residents have chosen not to use their tax money for this purpose is, what, exactly?
Are DCers better than Arizonans or Bay Staters? Are their children more special than Californians or Pennsylvanians?
If DCers want the children of low-income residents to receive vouchers to "attend a private shcool of their choice that meets their needs", they can get off their lazy butts and vote for a local government that will impose the taxes and authorize the spending needed to do it.
But get your grubby hands out of our wallets.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe power of Democrat special interest groups is evident. The teachers unions do not want even the least bit of competition, so the Obama regime kills off vouchers for poor kids in DC, while the abortion zealots insist that absolutely everyone must have free "access" to contraception and therefore Obamacare must contain such a mandate. We have suffered through many authoritarian presidencies before, but never one so thoroughly hostile to freedom as this one.
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