This week, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on a bill that would reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP), the flagship school choice program in the nation’s capital. Since 2004, this program has provided low-income schoolchildren in Washington, D.C., which ranks 51st in the nation in standardized test scores, with scholarships worth $7,500 each to attend private schools of their choice. However, despite the program’s popularity and success—including significantly increased graduation rates and improved reading scores—political maneuvers have managed to jeopardize the future of this program and, along …
March Madness is in full swing. And former Harvard basketball player and current Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has once again “renewed his call for the N.C.A.A. to impose stricter penalties on universities that do not graduate enough of their athletes,” reports The Washington Post. The Secretary noted that while most colleges take academics for their athletes seriously, there are still some who don’t. “And I just fail to understand why we continue to reward that behavior rather than not tolerate it,” Duncan told the Post. The article went on …
House Speaker John Boehner’s (R–OH) commitment to school choice and his support for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) was chronicled in The Washington Post on Tuesday. “I just think it’s horrendous that you’ve got one of the worst school districts in the country right here in the District of Columbia,” Boehner stated. The Speaker went on to say: “Competition makes everyone better. One of the problems with education in America is that there’s not enough competition in the K through 12 arena.” Boehner understands what intellectual heavyweights like economist …
In his opening remarks at the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) hearing Tuesday morning, Kevin Chavous, chairman of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, stated: By any measure, by any test, by any rational standard, this hearing should be about how we can expand this program not just in Washington, D.C., but into other parts of our nation. Instead … we’re here trying to save the very program that should be a model for our nation. Despite the DCOSP’s track record of success—manifested by the significantly higher graduation rates of …
Within the much-debated continuing resolution—an appropriations bill to fund the federal government through September 2011—is a bit of hope for students in the nation’s capital. The spending bill would remove language inserted in 2009 by Senator Richard Durbin (D–IL) prohibiting new students from receiving scholarships through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP). Despite its success, the program has been hanging by a lifeline for the last two years. Since 2003, the scholarships have helped thousands of low-income students escape the failing D.C. public schools by giving them the opportunity to …
After days of lost class time for Wisconsin students, teachers have returned to school. Yet Governor Scott Walker (R) is still faced with the demands of teachers unions who are pushing against reforms that would restructure teacher pension and benefit plans and reform unions’ collective bargaining power. While unions announced over the weekend that they would concede the pension and health benefits piece of the proposal, they continue to demand that their collective bargaining authority remain intact. Some may see this as a good start, yet such action only manifests …
Today’s Washington Post highlights an important outcome of yesterday’s hearing on the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP): U.S. Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman and Susan Collins sternly told District officials Wednesday that Congress probably will cut funding for city schools if efforts to revive a federal voucher program for students are not successful this year. At a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Collins (R-Maine) stressed that they and House Republicans are making the renewal of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program a chief priority.
Wednesday, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP) was the subject of a hearing held by Senators Joe Lieberman (I–CT) and Susan Collins (R–ME). Although the program is boosting the graduation rates of students who use a scholarship to attend private school and is overwhelmingly popular among parents and D.C. residents, the last Congress blocked new students from entering, and the Obama Administration has offered no support. Today, Senators, media, and proponents and opponents alike were once again reminded of the vital role this program plays for children and their families. …
When Congress began phasing-out the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program in 2009, some parents were forced to send their kids to public schools that are failing and often unsafe. When asked by these parents about what options exist for them, I was at a complete loss as to how to advise them. It troubles me greatly that parents are made to feel hopeless and helpless when faced with failing neighborhood schools that their children must attend because they don’t have the resources to either move to a neighborhood with better schools …
Parents across America who’d like to lift their children out of failing public schools can be grateful that the new leader of the House of Representatives gets it. Speaker John Boehner’s invited guests for tonight’s State of the Union address include students, teachers and other champions of vouchers that allow low-income D.C. children to attend the school of their parents’ choice – a results-getting program targeted for extinction by liberals beholden to government education unions. One of Boehner’s guests in the Speaker’s Box is a particularly dear friend of Heritage …
