Home > posts > Re-Upping D.C. School Vouchers Are an Early Test for Obama
November 10th, 2010 1:03 pm
Re-Upping D.C. School Vouchers Are an Early Test for Obama

The House GOP isn’t wasting any time putting President Barack Obama on notice that they are ready to test his new commitment to bipartisanship on education issues.  Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the incoming-Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, is promising to recreate the D.C. school voucher program Obama and the Democrats killed two years ago.

Vouchers are despised by teachers’ unions because the device introduces competition into the K-12 education market.  If parents don’t like the curriculum, culture or administration at a public school a voucher lets them send their children to a private school that meets their needs.  For all the canards about separation of church and state, the real reason teachers’ unions hate vouchers is because less students means less of a need for public school (i.e. unionized) teachers.

Supporting a bill that recreates the D.C. school voucher program would be good politics and good policy.  Good politics because President Obama could legitimately claim a bipartisan victory with Republicans on an issue that moves the president to the political center.  It would be good policy because it would allow low-income students the probability of the single biggest attraction of a better education: a better life.

All this for only recreating what already existed.  If the president can’t muster the courage to support this kind of feel-good, localized issue he’ll have no one to blame for the gridlock but himself.

H/T: Washington Times

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