Tag Archives: nation’s capital

I’ve told you about a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators who are leading the fight to save the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program for disadvantaged children in our nation’s capital. Well, most urgent on the agenda is saving the scholarships of 216 kids that were taken away at the last minute by Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan — despite the program’s proven success. Sign up on the new Save School Choice website to stay in touch and learn about ways you can help these 216 kids and many more. And listen in to the radio ad that’s debuting today in Washington DC (click the play button to hear): Let’s keep up the good fight, and let them know that both little kids and big people here in the Rocky Mountain West want to save this important educational opportunity for as many D.C. kids as possible.

I’ve told you how many politicians have been attacking the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which helps some of the poorest kids in the nation’s capital. Not only does the D.C. City Council support the private school choice program, but a new poll conducted by Braun Research shows that the people who benefit directly from it — D.C. residents, and especially parents of school-age children — overwhelmingly support it: 74% have a favorable view of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program; and 79% of parents of school-age children oppose ending the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The survey also contains additional findings about residents’ views on the public school system, charter schools, merit pay, and related issues. But it’s their opinions about the successful voucher program under assault by Congress that carries the most immediate relevance. It only makes the situation sadder that the people who are affected the most strongly support the program while politicians put powerful lobbying groups and ideology ahead of kids such as these:

Okay, I’m throwing Legos again (sorry). I just can’t throw them far enough to hit Education Secretary Arne Duncan. First, he ignored and downplayed the positive results of the D.C. voucher program in helping to improve students’ reading skills. Now comes the insulting letter from the U.S. Department of Education that swipes opportunity away from untold numbers of poor kids in our nation’s capital. When will the madness stop? Liberal pro-Obama Fox News commentator Juan Williams shares the outrage. Check out this Cato at Liberty post to read what he had to say, and click on his picture to watch the video. Just so you know that we’re not alone (not nearly alone), Jay Greene also has been rounding up other responses to the Obama-Duncan hit on D.C. vouchers here and here and here. Not sure why this issue is so important? Listen to Virginia Walden Ford from D.C. Parents for School Choice about what’s at stake. Watch some of the D.C. scholarship students tell you themselves. There’s more, lots more out there. But I think I need to stop, give myself a timeout and go to my room so I can calm down.

When I wrote yesterday with questions about Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s handling of the release of the D.C. voucher study, I didn’t necessarily expect such a fast answer. But former U.S. Department of Education official Russ Whitehurst has posted “Secretary Duncan Is Not Lying”. It’s a worthy read, and puts to rest the more extreme hypothesizing that Duncan knew about the positive results and intentionally hid them from Congress during the important debate on reauthorizing the program. While it seems clear that extreme case isn’t true, Jay Greene also rightly observes that other unsettling issues remain: Why did Duncan suppress the positive results in a Friday afternoon release with no publicity and a negative spin? Why falsely claim that the WSJ never attempted to contact him? The Secretary may well not be lying about his knowledge of the study but his credibility in general is very shaky right now. I’m too young to really grasp it all, but it seems politics lies at the center of the controversy. The D.C. voucher issue raises the specter of divisions within the Democratic Party and therefore causes some adults discomfort. But downplaying the results of the research doesn’t serve either the kids in […]

I’ve written about it a lot: the attack by Congress against students in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, that is. But I’m not ready to give up yet. And you shouldn’t be, either. If you need some inspiration – or maybe you’re just learning about this attack on school choice that benefits low-income kids in our nation’s capital – you really ought to listen to Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, explain the situation in this 10-minute iVoices podcast: Is it really true that the best we can hope for is saving the scholarships of the 1,700 kids who currently receive them, and leaving out in the cold the thousands more on waiting lists to escape some terrible D.C. public schools? Maybe that is the best we can hope for on behalf of Washington D.C. students for now, but don’t give up. After all, it’s important to note – as Adam Schaeffer does on the Cato-at-Liberty blog – that voucher and tax credit programs across the country are growing and growing in bipartisan political support. Keep your chin up. Stay in the fight.

President Obama made some remarks about education yesterday, and my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow got a chance to respond in this piece from Face The State: Ben DeGrow, education policy analyst for the Independence Institute, said he is glad to finally see Obama taking a strong position on education. “Obama the candidate and Obama the President has been all over the place on education reform, and it’s been hard to pin him down,” said DeGrow. “The comments in [Tuesday’s] speech are mostly promising, and we need to hold him to those comments.” [link added] In the Face the State piece, State Board of Education chairman Bob Schaffer also raised the point that Obama has given no indication of wanting to help stop an effort by Democrats in Congress to take away private tuition scholarships from poor kids in the nation’s capital. Still, the President’s message yesterday was largely on the right track. Among the less traditionally Democratic education reform ideas Barack Obama embraced are charter schools, accountability, and teacher performance pay. In the latter case, Obama seems to grasp the importance of the current problem with teacher quality: In his speech, the president issued a call for a […]

Last week I introduced you to some kids from Washington D.C. who would be hurt by Congress’ attempt to take away their school choice program. These kids asked President Obama to step in and save their D.C. Opportunity Scholarships. Yesterday, a writer for the Wall Street Journal introduced us to two more kids who could lose their scholarships, kids that go to school with the President’s daughters: Dick Durbin has a nasty surprise for two of Sasha and Malia Obama’s new schoolmates. And it puts the president in an awkward position. The children are Sarah and James Parker. Like the Obama girls, Sarah and James attend the Sidwell Friends School in our nation’s capital. Unlike the Obama girls, they could not afford the school without the $7,500 voucher they receive from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Unfortunately, a spending bill the Senate takes up this week includes a poison pill that would kill this program — and with it perhaps the Parker children’s hopes for a Sidwell diploma. You can follow the link above to see a picture of Sarah and James. I am so glad to see Joe Williams from Democrats for Education Reform write truth to power on […]

My tummy feels sick today — not because of something I ate, or any bug or anything. But because of the news that Congress’s latest spending binge includes a provision to take away school choice from some of the neediest kids in the nation’s capital. Watch the video from Voices of School Choice. These kids can tell you why it’s important for President Obama to stop what Congress is trying to do (H/T Matt Ladner): I’ll let the Wall Street Journal sum up with its excellent editorial today: On Tuesday, Mr. Obama spoke of the “historic investment in education” in the stimulus bill, which included a staggering, few-strings-attached $140 billion to the Department of Education over two years. But he also noted that “our schools don’t just need more resources; they need more reform,” and he expressed support for charter schools and other policies that “open doors of opportunity for our children.” If he means what he says, Mr. Obama won’t let his fellow Democrats consign 1,700 more poor kids to failing schools he’d never dream of letting his own daughters attend. Please do your part in asking the President to save the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. (And hope that […]

There’s a great story in the Washington Post today about the positive impacts of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability on poor and needy students in and around our nation’s capital (H/T Joanne Jacobs): Since enactment of the No Child Left Behind law, students from poor families in the Washington area have made major gains on reading and math tests and are starting to catch up with those from middle-class and affluent backgrounds, a Washington Post analysis shows. The achievement gap between economic groups, long a major frustration for educators, has narrowed in the region’s suburban schools since President Bush signed the law in 2002, according to Maryland and Virginia test data. In Montgomery County, for instance, students in poverty have earned better scores on Maryland’s reading test in each of the past five years, slicing in half the 28 percentage-point gulf that separated their pass rate from the county average. They also have made a major dent in the math gap. In Fairfax County, another suburban academic powerhouse, such students have slashed the achievement gaps on Virginia tests. Now, my friends in the Education Policy Center tell me that NCLB has some problems and flaws that need to be […]