President Barack Obama is touring the country asking for an up-or-down vote on his health care plan. Forget for a second that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) can schedule an up-or-down vote on the Senate health care bill any time she wants, and keep in mind that while Democrats are trying to create the legislative text for President Obama’s “new” health care proposal, Senate Democrats are also pushing to include student lending provisions in the reconciliation bill. What does student lending have to do with health care you might ask? Nothing. But the Senate routinely attaches seemingly unrelated matters to must-pass legislation.
That is what makes Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) refusal to honor Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) request to offer an amendment funding the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) to the American Workers, State and Business Relief Act so transparently hypocritical. Lieberman has been fighting for months to get an up-or-down vote on the DCOSP and saw a good opportunity with the Business Relief Act. But Reid prevented an up-or-down vote by ruling Lieberman’s amendment “not germane” to the underlying legislation. When has that ever stopped the Senate before?
The reality is that the Obama administration and Senate Democrats want to avoid an up-or-down vote on the DCOSP at all costs. Such a vote would force them to choose between their lofty post-partisan education rhetoric and the cold hard reality of the fact that liberal Democrats are beholden to the interests of the teachers unions. Articulating the official position of the Obama administration, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wrote in The Wall Street Journal last year: “We must close the achievement gap by pursuing what works best for kids, regardless of ideology. In the path to a better education system, that’s the only test that really matters.” What works. Regardless of ideology. That’s the only test.
Well the tests are in and the evidence is that the DCOSP works. Specifically, the Obama administration’s own Department of Education released a report showing “those offered a scholarship were performing at statistically higher levels in reading—equivalent to 3.1 months of additional learning.” Like previous evaluations, it also found that “the [Opportunity Scholarship Program] had a positive impact overall on parents’ reports of school satisfaction and safety…”
But the DCOSP works by giving parents education vouchers so that they are then empowered to make their own decisions about which schools are best for their children instead of being subject to the government-union-controlled education monopoly. That is why the Democrats and their like-minded teachers unions want to kill the program despite the fact that it helps poor kids. The Washington Post editorializes today:
Unless Congress acts soon or the D.C. government decides to assume responsibility, the voucher program, which has benefited so many students since its inception in 2004, is in grave danger. The Obama administration closed the program to new students; children currently enrolled, while supposedly assured of getting vouchers until they graduate from high school, face uncertainty as the program’s administrator pulls out. This is exactly what the program’s chief antagonists, the teachers unions, want; the National Education Association lobbied fiercely against Mr. Lieberman’s amendment. Given that a rigorous, federally mandated study confirmed the program’s effectiveness and that local leaders such as D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee have supported it, we understand why Mr. Reid sits on his hands. What possible explanation could Democrats devise for killing something that has been so crucial in the lives of thousands of poor D.C. children? How would it look? No, better to do nothing and hope the issue goes away.
President Obama and his administration are very familiar with the empowering benefits school choice brings to families struggling to educate their children. Growing up in Chicago, Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan attended a private school. Growing up in Hawaii, President Obama attended a private school. Growing up first in Chicago, and now in Washington, Obama’s two daughters attended and still attend private schools. In fact, two of Obama’s daughter’s classmates are able to attend Sidwell Friends thanks to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. And the annual Heritage Foundation survey of Congress and school choice shows that 38% of Members of the 111th Congress sent a child to private school at one time. Congress owes D.C. school children an up-or-down vote on their future.
Quick Hits:
- According to the latest Rasmussen Reports poll, 66% of voters believe Obamacare is likely to increase the federal deficit and 81% believe it is at least somewhat likely that Obamacare will cost more than official estimates.
- Not a single Democrat has switched from “no” to “yes” since President Obama began his “final” campaign for health reform.
- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs yesterday refused to answer whether President Obama would sign the Senate health bill if no reconciliation bill is produced by the Senate.
- According to the state’s independent Legislative Analyst’s Office, California will lose jobs due to higher energy costs from its aggressive climate change policy.
- According to documents uncovered by a former U.N. weapons inspector, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein weighed the purchase of a $150 million nuclear “package” deal in 1990.
Proponents of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program and families currently in the program have reason to be frustrated over Congress setting the course toward its elimination. But as Amanda Carpenter reports in today’s Washington Times, they’ve also found a “strong ally” in the fight for school choice – Juan Williams of Fox News:
Mr. Williams, who is also senior national correspondent for National Public Radio, hosted an event at the National Press Club on Friday to promote a short film produced by the think tank about the recent decision to cancel the short-lived D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.
On Friday, Williams joined former D.C. city council member Kevin Chavous at the National Press Club for an event on the future of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. Mr. Chavous was part of a panel of experts that included Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice and Heritage’s Dan Lips. Members of the media enjoyed a special screening of Let Me Rise: The Struggle to Save School Choice in the Nation’s Capital, and also had the opportunity to speak with scholarship parents.
The scholarships, which were handed out beginning in 2004, gave money to D.C. students toward attending a school of their choice. But Congress revoked funding for the program last year, forcing many disadvantaged minority students back into failing public schools.