The WSJ editors note Team 44's intent to end DC school vouchers by stealth via legislative language supplied by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, which provides that the voucher program ends unless both Congress and the District of Columbia government re-authorize the program. Instead of voting to end it, and alerting DC parents as to what is happening, this ugly deed will be done at night, thus paying tribute to the Gods of Labor and Education.
The WSJ editors frame the poignant personal side of the issue:
Deborah Parker says such a move would be devastating for her kids. "I once took Sarah to Roosevelt High School to see its metal detectors and security guards," she says. "I wanted to scare her into appreciation for what she has at Sidwell." It's not just safety, either. According to the latest test scores, fewer than half of Roosevelt's students are proficient in reading or math.
That's the reality that the Parkers and 1,700 other low-income students face if Sen. Durbin and his allies get their way. And it points to perhaps the most odious of double standards in American life today: the way some of our loudest champions of public education vote to keep other people's children -- mostly inner-city blacks and Latinos -- trapped in schools where they'd never let their own kids set foot.
Check out the WSJ piece to see the photo of two kids at Sidwell Friends (where 44's kids go, as did Chelsea Clinton) who may be sent back to Education Purgatory come this fall.
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