ICYMI: Who will rescue the D.C. voucher program this time?
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
April 11, 2012
The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) provides disadvantaged students in the nation’s capital the financial support and opportunity to access a better education. Since its inception in 2004, the program has rescued thousands of students from one of the most troubled public school systems in the nation. Despite signing into law last spring bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the D.C. OSP for five years, President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget zeroes out funding for the program. Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) recently joined House and Senate leaders in demanding additional information on the president’s decision to eliminate D.C. OSP funding, as well as an evaluation of the program’s success. An editorial in today’s Washington Post aptly describes the potential consequences of slashing support for this invaluable program: When President Obama reached a deal with Congress last year to reauthorize for five years the District’s program of federally funded school vouchers, families in the program and those who hoped to participate breathed easier. Tired of the political gamesmanship that annually threatened a program offering low-income children the chance of a better education, they welcomed the certainty. They may have celebrated too soon. Mr. Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget requests zero funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which allows children from low-income D.C. families to attend private schools with federal vouchers of up to $12,000 annually. It has proved popular and successful. More than 10,000 families have sought to participate since the program’s start in 2004, and polls show a majority of D.C. residents favor it. But teachers unions oppose it and, with the help of obliging Democrats, have tried — unrelentingly — to kill the program. # # # |