Asked and answered: School vouchers

The WashPost is up today with an op/ed criticizing President Obama (and rightly so) for killing the school vouchers program in Washington, D.C.:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082703576.html

As I’ve written previously, here is a program that specifically benefits poor minority kids in the city and has been proven to work. You would think that President Obama and the Democrats would be all over something like that. The Post ends by asking, “Why would a Democratic administration and Congress want to cut such an experiment short?”

Of course, the question is disingenuously cute: The WashPost knows the answer to its own question, and it bets its readers do too. The only reason Democrats oppose school voucher programs like Washington’s is that they are bought and paid for by the teachers’ unions. And the teachers’ unions oppose voucher programs for the simple reason that they don’t put any money into the pockets of the teachers’ unions.

One of the arguments the unions make is that voucher programs that allow children to attend private schools shift resources away from the public schools (true) and make it more difficult to fix the problems of the public schools (arguable.) However, this argument is akin to saying that children should not be allowed to evacuate from a sinking boat because it will decrease the urgency of trying to salvage the boat. I am all for improving our public schools, but the education of children is too important to hold them hostage in crumbling crime-ridden environments while the people who are supposed to be their advocates play political games. If you ask any parent, they will tell you that if they could afford it they would send their kids to the school where they can get the best education possible, whether it be public or private, urban or suburban, parochial or located on the planet Melnak. (Witness the many non-Catholic families that continue to send their kids to Catholic schools knowing they will receive instruction in a faith that is not their own. How’s that for religious freedom?) 

Most teachers care deeply about giving students the best possible education. However, the teachers’ unions would happily throw children under the bus (pun intended!) in order to obtain more money and benefits for their dues-paying members. It is a mystery to me why teachers – many of whom are troubled by the union positions – continue to support a bloated union leadership that does not always reflect their own views.

Democrats: Don’t kill D.C. school vouchers

CNN talking head Roland Martin has a very good piece up imploring President Obama and the Democrats not to kill the school voucher program that allows economically disadvantaged students in Washington D.C. (primarily black) to attend private schools. Martin points out that many of the Democratic politicans who oppose vouchers, including Obama, send their children to private schools.

Like Martin, I am a product of the public schools (though I attended a private college) and a believer in public education. Nevertheless, until cities like D.C. can offer a decent public education, it is not fair to allow a generation of kids to be failed by the public system when alternatives exist. Yet that is precisely what the teachers’ unions would have us do.

Democrats have long claimed to be the champions of underprivileged minorities. Here’s their chance to prove it or be exposed as hypocrites.