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Next week, about 47,000 children will head back to school in the nation’s capital. Unfortunately, they will be heading back to failing schools.
In March 2009, the U.S. Senate voted-down an amendment to the $410 spending bill which would have allowed the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program to continue through the 2009-10 school year. The program was approved by the then Republican-controlled Congress in 2003.
The Senate voted 58-39 along party lines, to kill the amendment introduced by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV). "Parents are lined up to give their children a better future through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship. And why not? It´s a better education in a safe environment. For policymakers, it should have been just as simple because it's also less expensive," said Ensign.
The program allowed families making under $22,736 a year to receive vouchers worth up to $7,500 per student, for a private education.
Faced with angry parents, and accusations of hypocrisy, as his own children attend the exclusive Sidwell Friends private school, President Obama decided to allow the 1,715 children currently enrolled in the voucher program to continue attending private school until they finish high school.
Of course, the program is no longer available to other students, and the voucher plan will simply be ended through attrition, ignoring the desperate pleas from D.C.’s parents who had hoped their children could also receive a quality education.
With the end of the program, unfortunately comes the end to the only chance that most of these families will have of breaking the cycle of poverty.
Those who oppose school vouchers, often claim that they do so because funding the program will divert needed funds from public schools. However, they ignore the fact that we continues to throw good money after bad, as our public schools continue to turn-out young men and women who are woefully unprepared for the ever competitive and shrinking job market.
Far too often, most of our elected representatives on the left, choose to keep supporting public schools as well as the teachers’ unions who financially support their campaigns.
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), was one of those who opposed vouchers, and who also enjoyed very strong support from teachers´ unions.
Shortly after the Senate ended the program, Melissa Wagoner, a spokeswoman for Sen. Kennedy, told reporters:: "Sen. Kennedy strongly opposed the creation of the program, which takes funds from very needy public schools to send students to unaccountable private schools."
Of course, Ted Kennedy’s children enjoyed the benefits of a private education, with Ted Jr. attending St. Albans School in D.C., and Patrick attending Phillips academy in Andover, MA.
Hypocrisy aside, it makes better economic sense to offer vouchers to school children..
According to a report from the U.S. Department of Education, D.C. public schools´ expenditures break down to $15,798 per student, more than twice as much as was being spent per student in the D.C. voucher program.
Despite the high price of a public education in D.C., the 2007 National Assessment of Education Progress which administers math and reading tests to fourth- and eighth-graders, D.C. students scored lower than students in any of the 50 states.
Sadly, only 12 percent of D.C. eighth-graders were rated as “grade-level “proficient” or better in reading, and only 8 percent in math.
A great example of how school vouchers can change individual lives as well as whole communities, can be found at Messmer Catholic High School in Milwaukee. No less than 80 percent of Messmer´s students receive vouchers. With a daily attendance rate of 95 percent, and 90 percent of the students going on to a four-year college, this school should be the poster child for the school voucher movement. State law dictates that no more than $6,501 can be spent on Milwaukee students´ school vouchers.
In comparison, it takes Fairfax (VA) County Public Schools, which is one the better school districts in the country, more than twice as much money for the same results seen at Messmer. In Fairfax County, 91 percent of public high school graduates continue on to some form of postsecondary education. However, $13,340 was spent per student during the 2008-09 school year.
Fed up with failing public schools and government gridlock, many in Pittsburgh, PA have been financially supporting the Extra Mile Foundation. The foundation operates solely on private funds and pays for the tuition of low-income black children, to attend parochial schools. The program pays for 1st through 8th grade students and has been very successful. Those who run the foundation boast that in the history of the program, not one child has ever failed the following year (9th grade). Additionally, 96 percent of Extra Mile´s students go on to graduate from high school in four years.
According to the CATO Institute, the average amount spent on a public school student is $8,830. The average private elementary school tuition is less that $3,500, while the average private high school tuition is $6,052. Obviously, the taxpayers would see a much better return on their money if all children were given a private education.
A 2003 UNICEF study, concluded that the United States ranks 18th out of 24 nations in the effectiveness of its education system. The U.S. ranked behind Finland, Australia, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands, United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, and Singapore among others.
There are currently two cultures in this country: The educated and everyone else. You see, when liberal elitists talk about inadequate social programs and the need to embrace our public schools, they talk about these things as they will apply to the rest of us…Never to themselves.
Senators are rarely affected by their own policies. Awarding vouchers to poor children, so that they might attend a private school and become equipped with the tools which will allow them to do more than manual labor...Well, that just hits a little too close to home for them. After all…Who will dig the ditches if the children of laborers are allowed to cultivate their intellectual abilities?
If we are a truly compassionate society, we will make school vouchers available to as many children as possible. As our public schools continue to fail miserably, vouchers present the only viable hope to those children now stuck in grinding poverty.
There is one criticism of school vouchers with which I agree, that is that there are not enough vouchers for every child who deserves a chance at a meaningful education. In my opinion, we should actually be making a move to the complete privatization our school system. However, until we are have legislators who are willing to stand up to the teachers´ unions and stand up for our children, we will have to fight for the school vouchers.
Even though the number of children whose lives are saved by vouchers is relatively small, every child given a good education is one more who will now have an honest chance at the American Dream.
Why should parents continue to support schools that do not serve their children? If the left really believed their own rhetoric, they would support school vouchers. Doesn't every child deserve a real chance?
In the age of trillion dollar bailouts for Wall Street robber barons and millionaire bank executives…Why not a bailout for our children?
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