April 14, 2009 8:03PM # Are People Finally Seeing the Gloom? By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) --- SHARE Maybe, just maybe, word might finally be getting out, and people might finally be getting angry, about the [dirty dealings in Washington, DC](https://www.cato.org/2009/04/08/the-bloom-could-not-survive/), 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 ](http://jaypgreene.com/2009/04/13/friday-night-massacres/)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](http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/DoEdReinoso%20Letter.pdf) 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 ](https://www.cato.org/2009/04/10/whitehurst-duncan-is-not-lying/)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 ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psCq9q1hXoQ)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 ](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/13/AR2009041302027.html)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. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).