Budget 2011: Crushing Dreams for DC Vouchers Students

Lindsey Burke / February 03, 2010

President Obama’s FY2011 budget confirms his administration’s plans to phase out the successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. There are two clear indicators of this in the budget: the elimination of future funding for the program and the effective consolidation of the “three-sector approach” into two sectors. With regard to the elimination of funding, page 1244 states:

The Budget proposes to continue to provide private school vouchers for only those students currently enrolled in the program…it is expected that this will be the final request for Federal funding to support the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Any funds not used in 2011 will be available in the future years to provide scholarships to the current cohort of students.

If adopted by Congress, this language would permanently restrict scholarship funding to the $9.4 million proposed in the FY2011 budget (which decreases to $8.4 million after subtracting the $1 million appropriated for administrative costs and tests). But as unfortunate as the elimination of the D.C. OSP is, the continued political pay-off to the D.C. public school system is equally appalling. (more…)