An activist becomes unhinged at a Washington Times reporter, who challenges D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray during a press conference in which Gray and several others voice their opposition to the reauthorization of the district’s Opportunity Scholarship Program.
The last-minute spending deal among Congressional leaders adds money to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are reporting. The revival of the scholarship is a top priority of House Speaker John Boehner, who has sponsored a measure that passed the House last month. That was just about the time the White House issued a statement asserting that the scholarship has proven ineffective.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid said of the eleventh-hour negotiations: “We didn’t do it at this late hour for drama, we did it because it’s been very hard to arrive at this point. Both sides have had to make tough choices.”
The Post editorial board tonight challenges the White House’s assertion that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship has failed to demonstrate progress in raising the achievement of the low-income students who benefit. “The White House has a right to its own opinion, as wrongheaded as we believe it to be,” it begins. “It doesn’t have a right to make up facts.”
But beyond the academic progress the program has made — progress that, as the editorial notes, has been charted rigorously and reported before the Senate — the Post supports the program, above all, for the dignity it provides to families who have felt all but disempowered without it:
There are, we believe, other benefits to a program that expands educational opportunities for disadvantaged children. The program, which provides vouchers of $7,500 to low-income, mainly minority students to attend private schools, is highly regarded by parents, who often feel it allows their children to attend safer schools or ones that strongly promote achievement. Our view has never been that this voucher program is a substitute for public school or public school reform. But while that reform proceeds, scholarships allow a few thousand poor children to escape failing schools and exercise a right that middle-class parents take for granted — the right, and dignity, of choice.
UPDATE: The Washington Post on the committee’s vote.
The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted 21-14 today to approve John Boehner’s proposed renewal of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.
When John Boehner and Joe Lieberman introduce legislation on Wednesday that would reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, as anticipated, they would be wise to look to Florida if they’re looking for bipartisan results, as Boehner has indicated. Lieberman, who became an independent only in 2006, championed voucher proposals for years as a Democrat, but that has never buoyed hopes among the program’s advocates for a bipartisan embrace. Only three other Democratic senators stood by Lieberman in his effort last March to reauthorize the scholarship.
By contrast, nearly half the Democrats in the Florida Legislature now support the Tax Credit Scholarship for low-income students, along with two-third of the Black Caucus and all but two members of the Hispanic Caucus. But that ratio of Democrats to Republicans wasn’t always the case. When the Legislature approved the program nearly 10 years ago, only one Democrat backed the plan.
What changed, and why is Florida so different? As Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute told a St. Petersburg Times reporter last year, the chief proponents of the Tax Credit Scholarship have cooled the political rhetoric from years past. That’s unlike Boehner’s provocation at President Obama. The House speaker’s statement to reporters begins, “If the president is sincere about working together on education reform …”
When it came time to consider a bill that would expand and strengthen the scholarship program, the Florida Legislature collectively approved the measure by a 122-34 margin. The following is a selection of quotes from lawmakers who voiced their support on the House or Senate floors. Try to spot who’s a Democrat and who’s a Republican. The answer(s) will follow: Continue Reading →
Today, our friends at Democrats for Education Reform bring us their thoughts on the power of community. Michigan DFER director Harrison Blackmond points to examples where community and grassroots action culminated in educational policies that upended the status quo, such as the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship. But, as Blackmond notes, “such efforts nationally are few and far between.”
In Michigan, like most states, the education reform movement appears to be led, for the most part, by those suspected of having other agendas. Whether true or not, this suspicion undermines the legitimacy of our efforts and authority to speak for those most adversely affected by the status quo — parents, students and the communities in which they reside.
He continues:
As a participant in and observer of the civil rights, antiwar, environmental and labor movements, I have come to appreciate the value of large scale community organizing as a strategy to promote social change and specifically school reform. What seems to be missing, in large measure, from school reform strategies is large scale community organizing to force reform within urban school districts.
Doug Tuthill
John E. Coons
John Kirtley
Stephen D. Sugarman© 2012 redefinED. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by WordPress. Designed by 
Follow Us