Maybe, just maybe, word might finally be getting out, and people might finally be getting angry, about the dirty dealings in Washington, DC, that are quietly killing the city’s desperately needed school voucher program.
The story has been percolating for more than ten days, ever since the U.S. Department of Education staged a stealthy and too-late-to-matter release of a study showing that DC’s voucher program works. But the coverage has largely been restricted to the blogosphere, along with a smattering of newspaper opinion pieces.
What might be changing that? A smarmy Education Department letter released late last week telling parents who thought they had won a voucher for the 2009-10 school year that no such voucher would be forthcoming. This despite the fact that the voucher program is not scheduled to end until 2010-11. Apparently, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan – who seems to be doing all of the political dirty work against DC school choice – decided that it just doesn’t make sense to let kids have a year of private schooling if they’ll just have to go back to DC public schools. Never mind that a year of good schooling is better than no good schooling, or that the program can still be saved if Congress and the DC City Council vote to reauthorize it – barring the door to quality education right now is clearly in the children’s best interest.
The department’s letter has finally sparked some news media interest in the plight of DC school choice. Spurred by the letter, this afternoon Fox News ran what, to my knowledge, is the first non-opinion piece about the Obama administration’s quiet-but-deadly campaign against choice in DC. There is also word that voucher parents are beginning to organize a response to the assault on their children’s educational lifelines, with a strategy meeting scheduled for Wednesday night. Oh, and the opinion pieces keep on coming.
Sadly, as I and a few others have noted over the least week-and-a-half, when it comes to education it seems that President Obama’s rhetoric about putting evidence ahead of politics is just that – rhetoric. Hopefully, more people are starting to see the dim, disappointing light.