Obama and the Dems: Standing in the D.C. schoolhouse door
First, watch this powerful video open letter to President Obama from students who have benefited from D.C. public school choice through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. Kids who support government monopolies get all the MSM attention. These kids get…ignored:
Rob Bluey blasts the Dems’ efforts to block the D.C. schoolhouse door led by Rep. David Obey.
The pro-school choice movement is joined, believe it or not, by the Washington Post editorial board, which writes today that “Ending D.C. school vouchers would dash the best hopes of hundreds of children.”
Last week, the Democrat-controlled House passed a spending bill that spells the end, after the 2009-10 school year, of the federally funded program that enables poor students to attend private schools with scholarships of up to $7,500. A statement signed by Mr. Obey as Appropriations Committee chairman that accompanied the $410 billion spending package directs D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee to “promptly take steps to minimize potential disruption and ensure smooth transition” for students forced back into the public schools.
We would like Mr. Obey and his colleagues to talk about possible “disruption” with Deborah Parker, mother of two children who attend Sidwell Friends School because of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. “The mere thought of returning to public school frightens me,” Ms. Parker told us as she related the opportunities — such as a trip to China for her son — made possible by the program. Tell her, as critics claim, that vouchers don’t work, and she’ll list her children’s improved test scores, feeling of safety and improved motivation.
But the debate unfolding on Capitol Hill isn’t about facts. It’s about politics and the stranglehold the teachers unions have on the Democratic Party. Why else has so much time and effort gone into trying to kill off what, in the grand scheme of government spending, is a tiny program? Why wouldn’t Congress want to get the results of a carefully calibrated scientific study before pulling the plug on a program that has proved to be enormously popular? Could the real fear be that school vouchers might actually be shown to be effective in leveling the academic playing field
The question answers itself.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- The kidz | Blackinformant.com - African-American culture, news commentary, politics
- Obama: Making Education EQUALLY Bad for All « Patriot Burr
- I’m a victim of the “Moderate Myth” | skewred.com
- Ending D.C. school vouchers would dash the best hopes of hundreds of children. But Obama, David Obey, and the other democrats don’t care | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
- More Children Left Behind on The Patriot Room
- Take ‘Dem Kids Voucher Money! ACORN Needs it! | Democrat = Socialist
- Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator
- Obama and the Dems: Standing in the D.C. schoolhouse door « Top Daily Digest Reading
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Education
Mudville Gazette
» The five-year plan
Stop The ACLU
» SEALs Charged With Assault for Arresting Top TerroristLegal Insurrection
» Is "Finish the Job" the New "Peace With Honor"?JustOneMinute
» Getting Ready For The TurkeyRiehl World View
» Uncle Jimbo Re-deploys In War With AllahSister Toldjah
» WaPo and NYT to Obama: We love ya, you stylish deep thinkerPundit & Pundette
» Hiding the decline: Deniers made them do itWeekly Standard
» GOP Opens up 7-Point Lead on Congressional Ballot, Obama Numbers Dive on Health Care, Gitmo, and KSM
I just cannot comprehend why so many people think this guy is the answer to all their problems. It’s just another example of a black-on-black crime.
And don’t forget: Obama’s kids go to PRIVATE school.
Nice of him to practice as he preaches.
The libs need as many students as possible in public school so that they are indoctrinated with the leftist view on everything in life, therefore repopulating their voting base with every graduating class. This is why they are so against private and home schooling.
Their children, though, will be educated at elite private schools that will groom them for elite colleges that will groom them for jobs in “public service” to lead our country. To allow the free flow of unbiased and apolitical knowledge would destroy their voting base.
But…but…but…I thought Liberal’s were for the children…
But, I’ll bet their parents voted for Obama…
An uneducated populace is the only populace that can be easily controlled. This trend with national
educationindoctrination started a long time ago and has been working too well for too long to allow our children to actually learn anything that may help them.Dexter; you could be right, but would they ever admit it??
Obviously, these “darkies” do not know their place in the Land of Hope and Change.
Somewhere, Bull Connor is smiling….. and somewhere Martin Luther King is bowing his head in shame.
These are the people who dare to say what they do is “for the children.” Pardon me while I wretch.
As do all the children of the members of the Politburo.
/sarc
This really tears me up (read both ways).
Unions are ruining America. Look at Detroit, not just the auto industry but now the AVERAGE home price is $7,500.00.
Yes $7,500.00 not $75,000.00.
Some people can buy a house on a credit card, thx to the unions.
Now Dems want to destroy our children AND their future.
Let them do it … The more havoc they reek, the more people will notice.
Paging Cory Booker!
AFP link
Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor isn’t weeping.
Obama. In the pocket of the teachers’ unions.
You didn’t think this guy was going to act on behalf of the best interests of our children, did you?
Sidwell Friends? Isn’t that were the little Obama girls are going to school? Could it be that THE ONE doesn’t want his children mingling with the great unwashed? What a freaking hypocrite.
I prefer “bald faced liar” to hypocrite when refering to the Premier. I’d use stronger language, but I’m home with the kids…
They got what they voted for. They have no reason for complaint.
Dems wouldn’t dare cross the Teachers Unions. Dems are bought and paid for by Unions. Those kids can go to hell as far as Dems and Obama are concerned. They don’t matter at all in their scheme… provided they vote Dem when their old enough.
As Rush says.. Liberals are the cruelest people around.
You didn’t think this guy was going to act on behalf of the best interests of our children, sovereignty, markets, borders, security, foreign policy, …
Forgot a few.
These kids put a lump in my throat. Correct grammer, well thought out views, dreams of going to college and having good careers…
Can we do every kid in DC a favor and shut all the public schools and send every kid to a private school?
Yes, and every kid who can get in and afford it goes to a private school here too. You know, like Obama did…
txvets – I don’t disagree at all. While I’m very much for vouchers, and despise the lies of the Premier, there’s no denying: the odds are very, very small that these people and their families didn’t make the bed they now lie in.
Here’s a current example of liberalism gone awry here in the land of the libs:
My teenage daughter plays a certain school sport (that I have to pay for). The group of girls rarely practice and they have been split up evenly into multiple teams – not by best team to worst team, but the teams are split up into a couple of good players and a couple of bad players and a mix of the rest.
My daughter fought this, but the coach basically said (and I never thought this would happen in a school sport),’ there are no losers, everyone is a winner’
To make matters worse, their team traveled to a, lets for fun call it a “ghetto” school. (I came from that myself, so no lectures) The other team was calling them fat whores, making sexual references to them and cheating was definitely being observed. (sports is fair game, so Im cool with that) Then to top it off, jewelery and cell phones were stolen out of the locker room. (thats a different matter though)
Our coach never made an objection, told our girls she wasnt going to confront the other school because it wasnt sportsman like, and that she wasnt going to try to make her team better because they were not that kind of sports team.
Oh man, and this is what our kids are being taught. And her teachers worry that Im going to stress too much about ME passing the classes at her grade level this year..
LOL, my daughter begs me to coach her and her friends outside of school hours. So once the real practices are over, I have them work out some more with me in charge. Then later in the evening, I take my daughter to the gym after her homework is done.
Nail, meet hammer.
Hammer, meet sickle.
You slay me, sir!
You are also right on target. I’ll bet some of the parents of these kids just saw The B.O.’s skin color when they voted.
Their kids are getting good grades and, probably for the first time in their lives, are happy about schooling and recognize where a good education will take them.
NOW they’re going to start singing a different tune. But I’ll bet you won’t be able to convince these parents that The B.O. is to blame. No matter that the democrats control everything. Their “problem” is “just happening somehow.”
I watched the video 5 minutes ago.
NOW IT IT UNAVAILABLE!!
Embarrassing to someone??
Now it’s back!!
Why am I not surprised? Obey’s from Wisconsin, where they’ve been trying to kill school choice for MPS kids (who are kind of in the same boat as DC kids).
Like DC, most of the kids who benefit from school choice here are minorities who are given an opportunity to escape a failing, bloated, corrupt school system.
Guess some kids are more important than others…
While it’s OK to spend millions on earmarks such as studying the DNA of grapes or swine manure, or enhancing the beaches on Cape Cod, or adding to the Kennedy library, but it’s not OK to spend money on successful school programs?
So much for priorities.
“…such as a trip to China for her son”?? I went to Camp Loma Mar. Hrrmmph. Let them eat trailmix.
Please explain to me how school vouchers are not just another government handout. Like I say with everything else, if you want to send other people’s kids to private school, please start a charity and fund it yourself.
Incidentally, private schools are not all wonderful paradises, and are not all better than the public alternatives. It turns my stomach to think my tax money might be condemning children to one private school in particular that I know of, and I know others are as bad or worse. I can’t do anything about their parents sending them to these places, but why should I fund a school I have no say in, any more than I should fund other people’s choice in houses or bail out the automakers?
The government failing to fund something is not the same as banning it, and it is not heartless to say “This is not government’s job and it is not a good idea for government to do this job.”
Now, if you want tax breaks instead of handouts, we can talk. We can also talk charter schools; that’s my favorite. But government-funded vouchers because of the deplorable condition of public schools make about as much sense as subsidies for FedEx expenses if the Post Office isn’t doing a good job.
Liberals have no shame…throwing away the lives of these children.
If you can find anyone in the bloated bureaucracy to put an end to this farce known as federal
educationindoctrination, get rid of the NEA and taxpayer funded schooling altogether on anything but a local level, I am with you. Other than that, any alternative that allows the children to be educated has other benefits.It keeps the money out of the hands of the NEA and other unions which could in reality care less about the children or their education.
It gives children the opportunity to learn viable skills that may help them to actually be capable of competing in our increasingly global society.
It does at least afford minimal protection against juvenile thugs and other “undesirables” whose
“education”indoctrination is deemed to be some type of constitutional right despite their disruption, lack of desire to learn and sometimes blatant violence.If you can think of a way to get rid of the national system, I am behind you with all I can do but until then, the lesser of two evils may still be evil but sometimes … well … if it is your only hope.
Some of us “old-timers” may remember, but D.C. schools, once, were considered one of the best systems in the country. That was back in the ’50s. Then the liberals took over….
Listen to the childrens problems in their old school. Violence, kids yelling at teachers, hurting the child. These things can be corrected without money being thrown at schools. This is what we are cowards about; not making sure every kid in our country receives a good education no matter where they live. This means throwing out these lousy school boards and administrators for a start.
obama and the compassionate left know what’s best for these kids. send them to the public schools run by our division of propoganda and indoctrination. they will grow up to be useful acorn volunteers. of course our children go to private schools so they can read when they graduate, and lead the rabble of uneducated, doomed poor black kids. you can’t have a voting army without sacrificial peons willing to take the table scraps of the politburo.
Is the NEA private or government? If it’s government, I have no problem getting rid of it. If taxes are going to it, I would like that to stop. I would certainly like to completely dismantle the Federal Department of Education, which has no business existing.
The only reason I would even want to keep local government-funded education for the time being is so that a couple of generations don’t slip through while the private education industry builds up to a healthy level.
Nobody suggests a government program without thinking it has some kind of benefit. Is it the government’s job? Is it something the government as opposed to the private sector should be doing? Is it something the government has any right to use my money for?
No, it doesn’t. The government would just take enough money from the citizens or run up the deficit to pay for both.
Why is this the function of government rather than private charity? What gives the government the right to take my money to do this? I have problems of conscience with a lot of these private schools. You should not assume that because a school is private it is a good school. I don’t wish to interfere with people giving their own funds to charities they like, but I don’t want other voters and politicians choosing my “charitable” contributions for me. I should decide what charities are the best places for my paycheck, and you should decide what charities are the best places for your paycheck. We should not have say over each other’s.
Don’t assume juvenile thugs are absent from private schools, either.
I don’t mind talking about measures of safety for the kids, including potentially charter schools and tax breaks. We should not be forcing children to go to places where they are unsafe. However, I think there are other and better solutions than giving government handouts “for the children” to be used in private sector institutions that taxpayers have no say over but the politicians have decided they like. Charter schools. Tax breaks that allow usage of a different school. Better handling of juvenile thugs. Allowing teachers to concealed carry.
I don’t find it so much of a “hope” as “another toxin.” I do want to vote people into office who will get rid of the national system; sounds like we can agree on that much. I just think government handouts do more harm than good, no matter which side of the political aisle is enamoured of the charity it wants to give everyone else’s money to.
And sorry for the loooong delay in posting. Sometimes I just don’t have the chance to post for a couple of days.