Can’t vouch for it
One under-reported feature in the $410 billion catch-all spending bill being debated in the U.S. Senate is a provision that would eliminate the District of Columbia’s school voucher program. The experimental program currently serves 1,900 children of low-income families, providing $7,500 “opportunity scholarships” to attend private schools instead of the public schools, which in the nation’s capital are notoriously poor.
Majority Democrats say cutting the program would save $14 million a year, which is laughable in a $410-billion bill that increases spending 8 percent over last year. The real reason the program is under attack is because the teachers’ unions feel threatened by voucher programs that let poor kids escape crummy public schools.
If the provision survives it would be a shame. Vouchers might not be the answer everywhere. But in D.C., where the unions’ lowest-common-denominator thinking consigns too many children to lives with limited opportunity, the program is immensely popular and seems like the least official Washington, which sends a lot of its children to private schools, could do.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan doesn’t think vouchers are the ultimate answer, but he recently told the Associated Press it doesn’t make sense “to take kids out of a school where they’re happy and safe and satisfied and learning” — a memo congressional Democrats apparently didn’t get.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment