Support for school choice in Washington, D.C. continues to grow. The latest national voice to call for saving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program is MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Check out this Hardball interview with RNC Chairman Michael Steele: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFUyqr6QsFY[/youtube] Mr. Matthews says: “These opportunity scholarships should be maintained.” Later in the interview, Mr. Matthews makes an interesting point about how the opportunity to attend a private school made a big difference in the life of Judge Sotomayor: “Cardinal Spellman high school is one of the reasons why this woman, Sotomayor got …
Friday’s Wall Street Journal highlights the increasing bipartisan support towards charter schools around the country. Due to rapid growth, many states have limited their expansion by placing caps on the number of charter schools. But Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has suggested that lifting charter school caps and instituting merit pay are essential steps in receiving grants under the “Race to the Top Fund” created by the Obama Administration’s stimulus bill. Now even those who previously opposed charter schools are realizing the real hindrance to charter school expansion is special …
In a move that is hardly inspiring New York students to work hard and achieve greatness, the AP reports that you can now make $70,000 a year sitting around and doing nothing for eight hours a day. All you have to do is become an ineffective New York City public school teacher. The city’s policy of paying teachers not to work is more than just a waste of money. It adds to the utter lack of accountability that plagues the system and undermines any reason to teach students well. Because …
Today in Washington, DC there was a rally for School Choice organized by DC Children F1rst. From Marion Berry to concerned parents to popular R&B recording artists, the message to lawmakers was clear – Put Kids First! What is also clear, is that by effectively killing the Opportunity Scholarship Program will put kids last. The rally overall was very postive because the kids and parents were happy with their education. Why take that away from them? Heritage expert Dan Lips has more about this event on The Corner.
As this video makes clear, the dulcet tones of President Obama’s education policy may have been music to the ears of liberals and some conservatives alike, but the D.C. voucher issue has proven that the President’s grand declaration about how Education Secretary Arne Duncan should make decisions is merely vapid rhetoric. Heritage has covered this issue well. Read a history of the successful program by Heritage Scholar Dan Lips here, a fact sheet here, and several blog posts here. We recently wrote on the Foundry: The Department of Education knows [the D.C. …
A month ago, Obama explored the notion of nationalizing the banks under the Swedish model. Instead of the Swedish banking model, Obama should look at the school voucher program in Sweden for inspiration. The Pacific Research Institute recently had a video Op-Ed on the New York times Web site explaining how well the voucher program works in Sweden. The voucher program in Sweden has broad bipartisan support and has defeated the “status quo” in education and the children, as well as parents, are reaping the benefits. In the video, Stockholm …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKzZJoPu1OQ[/youtube] Some worried D.C. schoolchildren recently asked President Obama to continue the highly successful D.C . Opportunity Scholarship Program. The program, which allows parents the choice to to take their children out of failing public schools, is in danger of being scrapped completely after the 2010 school year. Ignoring the pleas of these children and others, a measure hidden in the omnibus spending bill effectively eliminates this program. It would make it so the funds have to be reauthorized by Congress as well as approved by the D.C. Council, providing a …
