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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

The GOP Should Keep the DC Voucher Program Going

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  April 24th, 2009 at 11:48 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

One of our correspondents sent a link to this post on the DC voucher program with a very brilliant idea:

if the Republican Party is serious about doing something to reach out to the black community by making a gesture on behalf of the 1,700 minority kids Obama has consigned to the worst public schools in America, they’d spearhead an effort to revive the DC voucher program using private funds. $15 million is not a tremendous amount of money to raise if RNC chair Michael Steele would throw his weight behind an effort to get it done, and I would suggest every GOP Senator and Congressman could use their fundraising prowess to fill the coffers of a private program replacing the one Obama killed to great effect.

There are 219 Republican members of Congress (House and Senate); raising $15 million if all of them were to get behind the program would require $68,000 or so from each. These guys do that in one dinner on a good night; and raising money for a private charity to fund a DC voucher program wouldn’t be restricted by campaign fundraising limits.

If raising the money could keep the program going, I think the GOP should do it. It’s for a very worth cause.

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COMMENTS

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  • Brian Hibbert

    I’ll throw $100 a year into it. It’s not much but it’s a cause I can believe in and I’m sure there are thousands of others who could at least match that amount.

    Since this would be a charity, this may even be tax deductible, which means I could give 28% more……

  • E Pluribus Unum

    I can’t find the link to where I said this before, but I did say it before.

    We should fund it from RNC donations. For two reasons. First, it truly is a worthy cause, and the Dems are the worst kind of scumbags for killing it. Those kids deserve better than Democrats. Second, it’s insanely effective outreach – you know, exactly the kind of outreach that American blacks say the Repubs do not do.

    So do it, and put that information on billboards all over the DC area. And run commercials non-stop on ABC News broadcasts, prime time TV, BET, and radio commercials on all the urban stations.

    I was thinking of writing a diary that is titled: Attention American Blacks: the Democrats Hate Your Children. [on the very subject of the DC school vouchers]

    Still might.

  • nonsequitur

    Obviously, its an opportunity for the GOP to expand its voter base. All politics is local, and when it comes to local politics, it is “what have you done for me lately?”

    However, I think a broader approach is the best option for the country.

    On the subject of public schools, I think its fair to say the system is broken. Government operated schools fail our youth, and teach for standardised tests and statistics, not for applicable knowledge. For example, as a product of the public school system, I can attest to the complete lack of attention to skills such as good essay writing in difference to the memorisation of SAT vocabulary, and multiple choice stratagems.

    If the GOP wants to distance itself from the Democratic party and government control they should push for a revamping of the entire education system. For too long the debate has been framed such that Republicans seem to be in favour of education cuts. Gov. Jindal’s recent gutting of the public higher education system in my state has not helped that image.

    This is putting the cart before the horse. Yes, the public universities here are awful compared to the private institutions. But gutting funding only serves to exacerbate the problem and fuel backlash against conservative policies. The GOP needs to first push the voucher program nationwide, using the D.C. case as a proving ground, before moving to curtail public education. Otherwise, the debate seems like a non starter to the masses. Prove the viability of vouchers, then role back public education, not vice versa.

  • Lammo

    loudly and publicly introduce legislation to resurrect the program – - keep putting it on the Demoncrats to kill it. This will put the lie to their supposed belief in quality education. All they believe in is toeing the NEA line.

  • kagai

    Michael Steele about this most excellent suggestion. Hopefully, he will understand, and agree with, the unbelievably positives benefits in pulling this off. Humiliating the democrats and showcasing conservatives in a positive light.

  • MacAoidh

    …but at present the Republicans are in no position to get anything done in Congress. For them to accomplish anything it’s going to require a non-governmental effort.

    As it happens, a private resuscitation of the DC voucher program works on several levels. First, it demonstrates that good people working together on a voluntary basis can accomplish more than government can. Second, it casts Republicans as people who do more than talk, they act and make things better. Third, it’s a direct outreach into the minority community, where it’s already quite obvious that failed government schools are a major obstacle to upward mobility.

    And fourth, it is a critical policy priority to keep alive voucher programs wherever possible, because the longer they’re in place the more obvious it will be that choice and competition works better than Soviet-style command-based systems. Considering that education is (1) the area of American life where leftists have the highest penetration of our institutions and (2) the area where it’s most obvious that private-sector entities can deliver a better product at a lower cost than can the public sector, I can’t think of anything more important right now than to keep alive examples of how conservative free-market principles put to work will outperform the statist model.

    We can discuss Jindal’s higher education cuts, and I generally agree with your position there. I would argue that if Republicans are going to be painted as opponents of public education it’s even more important to keep alive the DC voucher program.

  • The_Gadfly

    The RNC should fund the founding of an affiliated group to raise the money and work with the schools to fund the vouchers/scholarships. They should also make a point of asking candidates to ask for contributions to the affiliate whenever they are asking for campaign donations.

    The reason for the affiliated group is that an affiliate can be organized under different rules than the RNC itself, and those rules can be very, very favorable to organizations involved in the promotion of education.

    I’d also organize the group broadly, so that it can start with DC and expand to other areas of the country as targets in previous areas are met.

  • Praying

    (give me a break – I only had my “political awakening” last fall around October – and by then it was too late, and now I’m too disgusted by the GOP politics, but I digress…)

    I would gladly contribute to this cause. We must act quickly – These kids only have one more year until their clock runs out. We can push for a policy change at the same time, but this needs to be done ASAP, and before the word gets out to the libs and the squash it. I’ll match Brian’s $100 a year. Just tell me who to make the check out to.

  • http://www.StanOlshefski.com Stan Olshefski

    The RNC can’t raise soft money.

    The best bet is to get a commitment from the RNC and others to use their email lists and promote, and for another new Republican organization form a 501(c)3 to raise the actual money.

  • Brian Hibbert

    in both Facebook and LinkedIn.

    Hopefully we’ll get a wider discussion of this going. It’s probably the best idea I’ve heard this year.

  • whitman

    Great Idea! I’ll donate to this!

  • ATLconservative

    I would enthusiastically give for this effort! Great program that could potentially pave the way for similar programs across the country. Plus, it shows conservatives truly care about effective education.

  • jano4

    A great idea, just the kind of grass roots initiatives most conservatives are good at. I very much like the idea of introducing a bill to resurrect the program. Let Democrats explain why this program doesn’t work and why it should be stopped.
    Let me know where to send money….I don’t have much, but every $1 counts.

  • Brian Hibbert

    I’m really hyped about this idea. Hopefully someone at the RNC will be just as excited about the possibilities in the program. And if they won’t implement it, maybe they’ll lend us a little assistance in setting it up ourselves and allow the name Republican to be used in the organization’s title.

  • mom2oneson

    I wrote that in my homeschool diary, how they administrators and teachers have done nothing but scammed them, and they get extra federal money because they are low income and they have not used the money to educate thier kids, but they say they are, that they lying and cheating their children, that they have wasted billions of dollars. I edited it because I thought it was disrepectful to long time members on this board since most here think they need the government.
    We should tell the parents not to sign those reduced/free lunch forms. the disctrict wold lose lots of federal money. We need to explain to the parents how funding works, where the district kids different funding from (attendance, school lunch forms) and how they are collecting the money but not giving the kids an education.

  • mom2oneson

    is privately funded and they say the children’s scholarship fund matches the donation dollar for dollar. I wonder if there is an organization that would match the voucher one too if they do lose their federal funding.