Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Obama Sends D.C. Students to the Back of the Bus

President Barack Obama will continue the District of Columbia school voucher program until current participants graduate from high school, then he'll eliminate the opportunity for a better education for those seeking eligibility during his tenure. The President's message to students yearning for the chance at a better life? Step to the back of the bus:

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.
Also, check out the Reason.tv video - it's heartbreaking how this administration damages kids (via Skye).

See also, "Protesters Blast Congress for Axing D.C. Vouchers While Sending Own Kids to Private School."

4 comments:

Dave said...

I have seen poll after poll that indicates black parents all across America are in support of the school voucher programs.

However, they have two forces working against them:

1) The NEA.

2) The racist left that is scared shitless of truly independent thinking, well-educated black Americans.

-As well they should be.

-Dave

dave in boca said...

The liberal fascists hate parochial education which teaches twice as well for half the money, demonstrating the corrupt incompetence of the AFTA and NEA straphangers and their criminal union bosses.

But the corrupt unions keep the corrupt Democrats on their side by backstairs deals and all sorts of chicanery to continue the daily disaster called the American educational debacle.

Black parents want desperately to avoid the trap of public school teachers' and their dumbed-down union members' negligence---their kids are the ones that suffer.

Dennis said...

Real racism has always been on the Left. To assume that Blacks and other minorities cannot succeed on their own merit is blatant racism.
One of the things that gives us the feeling of accomplishment is that we meet and exceeded the standards on our own ability with little help from others. To dumb down tests and require less from anyone is to condemn that person to a second class existence.
I have had too many minority mentors not to understand that they possess the skills and abilities to become successful members of society. They just need to be subjected to the same pressures and challenges as everyone else. Challenges are what make us what we are as human beings. To be not be allowed to face these challenges is to be less of a human being and is the true bigotry.
Much of the attacks, couched in pointing out supposed hypocrisy based on the left's definition of what it is to be a christian, a minority, a woman, et all, is bigotry hiding behind a need to justify that bigotry. It is the transference of their own corrupt ideas on to others to hide that corruption.

dave in boca said...

"It is the transference of their own corrupt ideas on to others to hide that corruption."

Your ideas and experience on facing challenges is deep and thoughtful. Minorities are coddled and spoiled or else left to fend for themselves as street lice. Time to grow up, but then the lefties are nothing but what the French call "gros enfants."And the quote above also applies to their avoidance of admitting that Islamic terrorism exists and their "displacement" of Islamist terror-wielders with their BDS hysteria about wire-tapping and "torture." The Left in general can be characterized as a giant Psychosis, global in its paranoid projections, transferences, and displacements. [cfr: Dr. Sanity for a full explanation].