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House GOP desegregates DC school system.

Teachers’ unions, racists, Dick Durbin hardest hit:

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program — which provides low-income District students with federal money to attend private schools — is a top priority of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The program was closed to new entrants by Democrats in 2009, but Boehner has sought to revive and expand the program. The House passed a Boehner-authored bill last month — the SOAR Act — to reauthorize the program for five more years, and that bill will be included in the final spending deal and signed into law by Obama.

More background here.  The administration was surprisingly unequivocal in its opposition to “the creation or expansion of private school voucher programs that are authorized by this bill,” probably because poor minority kids don’t contribute to Democratic slush funds to the extent that the NEA does.  Killing the DC voucher program has been a priority for Democrats since they took full control of the government in 2009; watching the President sign it back into law is going to be one of the more satisfying things that I* will personally see next week.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Not to mention the Heritage Foundation, which has been fighting this one tooth and nail, and in the streets, all along.

COMMENTS

  • johnt

    It doesn’t equate, the kids are being forced aren’t they? Who wouldn’t be happy with the DC schools system? I mean, some of their teachers can actually read the signs on the public buses.
    Poor Democrats, they can’t even fight racism by closing down a viable, alternate education for black kids, and Republican racists reopen it. Heck of a note !

  • caboose

    why is the federal government paying for on segment of people to go to private school and saying to the hell with the rest of the kids whose parents has to struggle to pay for their kids to go to private schools. The government don,t even allow a tax break for the tuition for these parents and yet they are pay for so called “Poor and Minority.” The so called”Poor and Minority” are better off that the Middle class because of all of the unearned benefits they received just for the color of their skin. I for one am fed up with people receiving bonus for not paying income taxes and benefits because they are “poor and Minority.”

  • paramedichess

    This isn’t really about being “poor and minority,” it is about living in the one tiny part of the country where congress actually has authority over educational matters. Everywhere else vouchers could be provided by the states (call your state senator).

  • http://www.neoavatara.com/blog neoavatara

    I talked about this extensively back in 2009 as well. It was a travesty of immense proportions to prevent children in one of the worst districts in the country from have the same opportunities as Barack Obama has provided to his own daughters.

    This should be heralded as a supreme achievement of Republicans, and Speaker Boehner in particular. I applaud his efforts.

  • bs61

    How about the rest of us?!

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine
  • Kyle-MI

    the teachers unions will have lost a huge battle on the public relations front. It could open up school vouchers in the states. This could be the crack in the dam. Just think about it. If teachers unions were so confident that vouchers don’t make a difference, then why are they fighting so hard against them everywhere? Why don’t they just allow one program to operate to prove that vouchers don’t work?

    This is why you should care about DC.

  • Adjoran

    if I recall correctly, Durbin still had to slip the clause which scuttled the program into a bill surreptitiously.

    With the startling incompetence and mendacity of Reid, and the loudly obnoxious partisanship of Schumer and Boxer, it is easy to overlook the imbecilic Durbin, but he is one of the most evil people in DC.

    Teachers unions hate vouchers and charter schools because they offer a chance to compare results. Before, the unions could always claim private schools just picked and chose their students, and they came from a higher economic strata (one which could afford to save its kids from public schools), so there was no apples-to-apples comparison. Vouchers and charters open the process up to all students, so the differences quickly become apparent.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    What sort of deal was cut?

  • bs61

    I couldn’t see the bigger picture.