Tag Archives: terrible

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.

The horse isn’t dead yet, so I’m not going to stop beating it. I’ve already highlighted the silliness of the “magical money tree” solution to education coming from Congress. Let’s not mince words: the so-called “stimulus” bill in Washington, DC, is a disaster. A disaster for education reform, and a disaster for students – who would end up being burdened with far, far more debt than we can hope to gain from the proposed education spending. As much as I have enjoyed picking apart the nonsense of this gargantuan wasteful spending bill, the writers at the Edspresso blog truly have been in their heyday unraveling the topic. After a hot start a few years ago, Edspresso went through some tough, slow times. That appears to be in the past, though. The latest piece “Status Quo Education Stimulus” ironically lauds the National Education Association for showing us how “the stimulus bill is nothing more than additional funding for the education programs and structures that already exist, regardless of efficacy.”