NEA and Compliant Dems Rolling Back Voucher Programs

The D.C. school voucher program has received a lot of attention in recent months since Congress and President Obama issued its death warrant. Obama has put funding for the children currently in the program in his proposed budget, but this has no force of law and the program as it stands will still end after this year.

Despite a general trend toward increasing bipartisanship on the issue, killing school choice remains a top priority for the powerful and largely Democratic teachers unions, and therefore many in the ranks of the Democratic Party’s leadership.

Now the Milwaukee voucher program, the intensely studied and successful private school choice program that crystallized the national school choice movement nearly two decades ago, is in mortal danger.

The new Democratic majority in Wisconsin has set about reducing the amount of the voucher, adding onerous regulations to participating school, and now is looking to directly reduce the number of children allowed a choice in education.

From the AP:

[Assembly] Democrats voted Thursday night in a closed door meeting to lower the cap on the program from 22,500 to 19,500 over the next two years. The current lid was agreed to in 2006 by Gov. Jim Doyle and Republican lawmakers...

The enrollment change was added to the state budget that will be debated by the Assembly on Friday. It must also pass the Senate and be signed by Doyle to become law.