A bit of welcome news
from the Post:
President Obama will seek to extend the controversial D.C. school voucher program until all 1,716 participants have graduated from high school, although no new students will be accepted, according to an administration official who has reviewed budget details scheduled for release tomorrow.
The budget documents, which expand on the fiscal 2010 blueprint that Congress approved last month by outlining Obama's priorities in detail, would provide $12.2 million for the Opportunity Scholarship Program for the 2009-2010 school year. The new language also would revise current law that makes further funding for existing students contingent on Congress's reauthorization of the program beyond its current June 2010 expiration date. Under the Obama proposal, further congressional action would not be necessary, and current students would automatically receive grants until they finish school.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan had told reporters that it didn't make sense "to take kids out of a school where they're happy and safe and satisfied and learning," but Democrats effectively terminated the program by requiring its reauthorization. Obama must now convince Democratic lawmakers to endorse a gradual phase out by continuing to include grant funding in future appropriation bills.
The voucher program was created in 2003 and is a Republican favorite, providing low-income students with a maximum $7,500 grant to attend a private or parochial school. All students come from households with incomes below 185 percent of the poverty line, and 8,000 students entered a lottery to participate. But liberal education groups, including the National Education Association, have argued that the experimental program is poorly administered and that voucher recipients have not performed measurably better in their new schools.
In a March 6, 2009 letter to Obama, the NEA president Dennis Van Roekel called the D.C. program "an ongoing threat to public education in the District of Columbia" and urged Obama to "use your voice to help eliminate this threat" by opposing "any efforts to extend this ineffective program."
The Department of Education recently issued a three-year analysis of student achievement under the program that showed limited gains in reading and no significant progress in math. But the White House concluded that moving the children back to public schools amounted to an unnecessary disruption.
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who has been vocal advocate for the voucher program, praised the move but said it did not go far enough.
"We think it's a worthwhile program," he said. "We should continue. If it's good enough for these kids, why shouldn't we allow others to get out of failing schools?"
The Weekly Standard
translates Obama's new position:
"Let me be perfectly clear. Everyone is going to know I'm killing this demonstrably effective program because of the political debt I owe to teachers' unions, which I of course assured everyone would not dictate my education policies. So let's just extend this enough to get people off my back even if it means taking the morally abhorrent position that the program is good enough for these succeeding, satisfied kids and parents, but no one else should be allowed to be similarly successful and satisfied, lest I lose my gazillions in union support. The children are our future, as long as they're not putting their grubby little hands on money that should be going to NEA members. Thank you, and God bless America."
A Post commenter notes:
By the way, here's a paragraph from the DOE report on this program:
"After 3 years, there was a statistically significant positive impact on reading test scores, but not math test scores. Overall, those offered a scholarship were performing at statistically higher levels in reading equivalent to 3.1 months of additional learning but at similar levels in math compared to students not offered a scholarship. Analysis in prior years indicated no significant impacts overall on either reading or math achievement."
Murray condenses this into "student achievement under the program that showed limited gains in reading and no significant progress in math," strongly implying the program has been a failure.
This interpretation appears unsupported by the paragraph quoted above.
The article also doesn't note that $7,500/year per student is about half the $14,500 public schools spend.
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