Precedent for helping children in need

Many opponents of parental choice assert that using educational tax dollars for anything but public schools would be essentially unprecedented. Actually, public funds have been used to support students in private schools in a variety of well-accepted ways, especially when those students require additional resources.
The Washington Post editorial board points out that [...]

Warriors for hope

Senators Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) have given low-income families a sign of hope and courage this week by requesting that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan rethink his decision to refuse new applicants to the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.  In a letter dated April 21, Lieberman and Collins ask that the program be [...]

A hint of hypocrisy: Parental choice only for the powerful

A new survey shows that 38% of members of Congress have at some point made the choice to send their children to private school.  (Nationally, only 11% of U.S. students are currently in private schools.)  The Washington Post points out the incongruity of making this decision for your own family while preventing low-income families from [...]

Williams: Education, “by any means necessary”

Too often education reform is seen as a nearly decades-long process whose best ideas are always to be found in the future.
Former DC mayor Anthony Williams, the father of the DC Opportunity Scholarships Program, reminds us that the poor state of U.S. education is not just a political issue, but an issue of justice. [...]

Shirking the burden of proof

Last week, after the release of positive research findings on the impact of the DC OSP, the Chicago Tribune called out its own senator and the Secretary of Education:
Sen. Durbin, Secretary Duncan, the evidence is piling up on your desks. The burden of proof is squarely on you to prove why, after so few years, [...]

The faces of opportunity

No matter what the issue, there’s always a danger that public policy discussions will take place in isolation from those who will be affected most by policy decisions.  So it is reassuring that the stories of several children receiving the DC OSP have been highlighted recently in the Catholic Standard, the newspaper of the Archdiocese [...]

DC scholarships undercut by “abrupt decision”

Just one week after the release of positive findings about the effects of the DC Opportunity Scholarships Program, Department of Education officials in charge of the program have declared that no new recipients will be enrolled for the 2009-2010 year.  This decision comes despite the fact that Congress, in the same omnibus bill that was [...]

Will proof be enough?

The buzz continues about the recent DC OSP research study, which found that students receiving the scholarships have made significant gains in reading.  We’re still waiting to see exactly how government officials will respond to the findings, though it appears many opponents are ready to dismiss the proven gains.
Some observers are getting impatient.  After the [...]

Secretary Duncan: Do what works

In his recent speech on education reform, President Obama made this promise to us:
Secretary Duncan will use only one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars: It’s not whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works.”
On the Senate floor, Dick Durbin of Illinois told us:

Allowing the program [...]

WSJ: Sitting on results a “moral disgrace”

The Wall Street Journal issued a scathing editorial yesterday that called the Department of Education’s delayed release of a research report that demonstrates significant benefits to students in the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program “a moral disgrace.”  The WSJ editorial board described how the Department of Education was almost certainly “sitting on” the results when the [...]