This is a sad day. Word from Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post is that Congress has decided to limit the D.C.'s Opportunity Scholarship Program to currently enrolled students. The news is embedded in a 1,000 page omnibus spending bill by a joint conference of a House and Senate Appropriations Committee that was made public Monday that also mandates new requirements for the voucher program. Students would now have to take the annual DC-CAS exam, participating schools would have to be accredited, and the Department of Education would be directed to inspect these facilities twice a year.
The practical effect of this bill and the fact that Congress has delayed re-authorizing the program is that private school vouchers will cease to be an option for more than 1,300 students. But we learn today that the impact of President Obama's decision to limit access to new entrants is even greater than we thought.
Because contributors will not financially support a withering program or the schools served by its constituents the President's action also means the end of the Washington Scholarship Fund. In a letter dated December 3, 2009 to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan my hero Joe Robert and other board members of the organization lay out the impact of what the President has done on their organization and the students they serve.
Perhaps if these kids lived in Afghanistan their ability to obtain a quality education would still have a shot..
Comments
Sad day for those kids who really need a program such as this to help boost their chances in life, while Obama's kids will never have to struggle to have the best! Where is the compassion?
What's sad is that this failed program (read the actual reports - not the spin by those who want to keep the funding flowing) will continue to pick my pocket until the last kid ages out. I'm sick and tired of my tax dollars going to support religious indoctrination instead of improving the DC public schools where I can keep any eye on who teaches, what they teach, and how well they teach it.
The voucher program was working. The kids were getting better grades and a better education. The current administration does not care about these kids or any others. They only care about the union vote and their own greedy, disgusting power. We are all being thrown under the bus one by one.
President Obama has decided to enroll his daughters in a private school, Sidwell Friends School. The tuition for both girls is approximately $60,000 annually. President Obama is wealthy enough to choose a private school over a public school, yet he removes the ability for average American families to make the same choice. This is pandering to the teacher's unions on Obama's part and extremely hypocritical. Obama throws a bone to the unions as pay back for their support, but by enrolling his daughters in a private school, he reveals his true feelings about the value of a public school education.
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