By I guess you can declare this a win for the teacher’s union and a loss for the kids who will be forced back into public schools:
An effort to preserve D.C.’s school voucher program – which pays parents to send their children to private schools – died Tuesday evening when the Senate rejected a Republican amendment to the $410 billion omnibus spending bill.
The amendment from Sen. John Ensign, Nevada Republican, to strike language in the bill restricting voucher funding and to reinstate funding for the 2009-10 school year went down in a 58-39 vote.
Mr. Ensign said the omnibus bill would “effectively kill” the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which allows qualified low-income families to claim up to $7,500 per student toward a private education of their choice. About 1,700 students are currently enrolled, and they will have to return to D.C. public schools. [Washington Times]
I have featured the Superintendent of the Washington DC schools Michelle Rhee before here on the ROK Drop and here is what she had to say about this issue:
Michelle A. Rhee, the schools chancellor, said she did not share the negative view of vouchers held by many big-city superintendents.
“Part of my job is to make sure that all kids get a great education, and it doesn’t matter whether that’s in charter, parochial or public schools,” Ms. Rhee said. “I don’t think vouchers are going to solve all the ills of public education, but parents who are zoned to schools that are failing kids should have options to do better by their kids.” [New York Times]
I have to wonder if the politicians who killed the school vouchers have their kids in public school or not?
5:11 pm on May 13th, 2009 1
I’m torn on this.
If the US wants good schools – and even the patrons of expensive private schools should want more than basic education for others – they have to support public schools. The vouchers always seemed a bad idea to me.
On the other hand, DC is infamous for the terrible schools in the district and any way to escape them should be taken.
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3:53 am on May 15th, 2009 2
Vouchers are an excellent idea, and many Korean Americans may even support it. Some Asian parents pretend to live in their friends / relatives house so they can send their kids to a school outside of their own districts. Some of these public classroom assign little more than pointless busy works.
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May 15th, 2009 at 7:25 am
In the article it said that 90% of the students receiving these vouchers were African-American students from poor neighborhoods. It is unfortunate to see these top minority students being forced to return to the chaos that is the DC school system. What frustrates me even more is that the politicians forcing them to return the chaos to receive a lesser education all have their kids attending private schools.
Ending the racial divide in America begins with allowing minorities that live in poor neighborhoods a chance to have an equal educational opportunity as everyone else. Having a system that assures that these kids stay in failing schools is not the answer.
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May 15th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
“Some Asian parents pretend to live in their friends / relatives house so they can send their kids to a school outside of their own districts. “
Non-Asian parents do this, too. Every year our school expels about 15 white, black, and Hispanic students who either live in another school zone or live in a nearby district. There are others who we suspect live out of district but cannot prove.
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