Last Friday the Wall Street Journal once again excoriated the president and his henchmen in that mis-educational system so larded with self-interested union thugs (and other Democrats) by pointing out how these ne’er-do-wells are attempting to kill the D.C. school voucher program that has done so much good for so many minority, inner city kids in the Nation’s capitol.

But the end of the editorial also pointed to the fact that Obama wants to perpetrate the same misdeeds against the educational opportunities of our soldier’s kids. It turns out that because the D.C. voucher program is such a success, military families are asking for a similar program. Democrats and Obama are desperate to head this idea off and kill it before it is fairly born — and Democrats have a lot of experience killing things before they are born, we all know.

As far as parents and kids that have had the benefit of the soon to end voucher program, the whole thing is one they don’t want to lose.

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Today, in fact right as I post this, D.C. Parents for School Choice and DC Children First, in a city where the student population is 90% black, are holding the DC School Choice Rally in the Freedom Plaza of Washington, DC (details here). Perhaps you should know why it was necessary…..

Says the Black Alliance for Educational Options:

Congress is poised to do away with one of former President George W. Bush’s signature initiatives in education: the taxpayer-funded vouchers that enable students from low-income families in the District of Columbia to attend private schools. About 1,700 children in kindergarten through 12th grade receive the $7,500 annual scholarships. Four times as many apply.

The District of Columbia spends more per pupil than any school district in the nation, but still is plagued by low test scores, high dropout rates and underperforming schools. The voucher program was passed by Congress as a five-year pilot program. But it has been on House Democrats’ hit list for some time……

White House spokesman Thomas Vietor said Tuesday that Obama supports allowing the current students to remain in the program until they graduate from high school but not permitting the addition of new students.

How would you like your daughter to be the student number 1701? The one who will never escape the underperforming public schools, who was not permitted to pursue her dreams for which she is perfectly willing to work hard for?

Dear American Blacks:

Sometimes the very best act of friendship I could do is tell you that the person you think is your best friend actually works against you behind your back, laughing at you, mocking your hardships, secure in the knowledge that you need him too much to ever leave him.

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[UPDATE]: I am, of course, remiss in not pointing this story out from last week.

(Via AoSHQ) I got some critical - and instantly sent to spam - commentary after I posted this and this on the pending death of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. While I’m sure that the writers of said spam were of course very incensed at my posts, I am forced to admit that I was wrong about something about them: I was working under the assumption that publicity would at least keep this program alive. Particularly since the private school that the Obamas themselves send their kids to has students that would be affected by this program.

Silly me. What’s a bunch of African-American kids, versus the teachers’ union? Especially in this administration?

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On Tuesday, March 10, the U.S. Senate voted to terminate the experimental Washington, DC school voucher program, which had been implemented in order to help provide poor minority children in failing DC schools with the same educational opportunities that so many children of Senators, Congressmen, and Presidents within the district have as a result of their advantageous birth.

During his Presidential campaign, President Obama indicated that he would put his personal opposition to vouchers aside “if he saw more proof that vouchers are successful.” I would “not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn,” he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in February 2008. “You do what works for the kids.”

Now, it appears that the Obama administration and the U.S. Senate purposely kept the results of a Congressionally-mandated study showing the benefits of the Washington, DC voucher program from becoming public until after they had managed to spike the program due to its supposed “lack of effectiveness.” (The executive summary is available here; the full report can be seen here.)

The information contained in the report was collected in spring and fall of 2008, and it was prepared for publication over the winter — then held from the public until April 3, when it was finally made available online.

The result of the Obama administration delaying the release of this report, which showed that participants in the voucher program outperformed those in the district’s public schools by a large margin on reading tests, until after the Senate vote is that the 1,700 low-income, minority children who are currently receiving up to $7,500 in vouchers per year to attend private school instead of their own failing DC public schools, will be forced to return to those publics after the 2009-10 school year, over the wishes of DC mayor Adrian Fenty, who said “it would not be productive to disrupt the education of children who are presently enrolled in private schools,” and despite empirical evidence that such a move will consign them to a lower-quality education and a far less optimistic future.

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Senator Durbin, why do you want to throw these kids out of their schools?

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