In today’s Washington Examiner, Barbara Hollingsworth writes about the injustice being committed to D.C. children by ending the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. Hollingsworth’s impassioned words get at the heart of the crisis:
It’s virtually impossible to get rid of federal programs that don’t work, so it’s even more astounding that a successful education program for low-income African American children is being phased-out by Democrats on Capitol Hill.
Without, I might add, a peep of protest from President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, or members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
What happened to ‘the fierce urgency of now’? How in heaven’s name can Congress sit there bailing out failed automakers, irresponsible bankers and Wall Street tycoons while yanking hope away from 1,700 impoverished District schoolchildren?
Former D.C. Council member Kevin Chavous and Juan Williams of Fox News and National Public Radio passionately defended the endangered $13 million D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program at a press conference last week. But they’re practically alone in their opposition to sacrificing children on the altar of political expediency to satisfy the false education gods at the National Education Association.
Over the past five years, OSP has provided District children with a quality private school education for half the amount spent per student in the city’s public schools which, even with Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s reforms, are still the second worst in the nation.
‘This is one of the most successful education programs ever created,’ says Dan Lips of the Heritage Foundation (whose heart-tugging documentary “Let Me Rise: The Struggle to Save School Choice in the Nation’s Capital” can be seen at voicesofschoolchoice.org).”