{"id":8419,"date":"2011-01-25T01:36:03","date_gmt":"2011-01-25T06:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=8419"},"modified":"2011-01-25T09:55:14","modified_gmt":"2011-01-25T14:55:14","slug":"d-c-school-vouchers-will-test-obamas-commitment-to-bipartisanship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/8419\/d-c-school-vouchers-will-test-obamas-commitment-to-bipartisanship\/","title":{"rendered":"D.C. School Vouchers Will Test Obama’s Commitment to Bipartisanship"},"content":{"rendered":"

As President Obama uses Tuesday night’s State of the Union address to attempt a pivot to the center (a topic you can hear me discuss at length with my fellow former White House speechwriters Peter Robinson and Bill McGurn in last week’s Ricochet podcast<\/a>), newly minted Speaker of the House John Boehner is preparing to call the president’s bluff by teeing up an offer that the president — who has long claimed to be a proponent of education reform — shouldn’t be able to refuse: the renewal of school vouchers in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

D.C. schools have long had a reputation as the nation’s worst. In response, a five year pilot program of Opportunity Scholarships (a fancy term for school vouchers) was begun in 2004. Then, in 2009 — despite years of positive results — an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress bent to the will of the teachers’ unions and shut the program down. Ninety percent of the children who had to leave the program then found themselves back in failing D.C. schools.<\/p>\n

If Speaker Boehner has his way, that trend will be coming to an end soon. According to a story in Politico<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The day after President Barack Obama makes education a centerpiece of his State of the Union address, House Speaker John Boehner will try to force his hand on the issue of school vouchers in Washington, D.C. as a test of the White House\u2019s commitment to bipartisanship.<\/p>\n

The Ohio Republican, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), will introduce legislation on Wednesday to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, the speaker\u2019s office said Monday, making a school voucher initiative that Democrats, including Obama, have strongly opposed as a bargaining chip for beginning discussions on the administration\u2019s desired education proposals.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s likely that the media won’t say much — or at least won’t say it for long — if this proposal doesn’t go anywhere. That’s to their shame. How the Democratic Party can ever expect to be taken seriously in its self-appointed role as defender of the downtrodden is inexplicable if they don’t take action to heal the wounds of poor minority children whose first, best chance at a better life is crushed beneath the weight of government bureaucracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As President Obama uses Tuesday night’s State of the Union address to attempt a pivot to the center (a topic you can hear me discuss at length with my fellow former White House speechwriters Peter Robinson and Bill McGurn in last week’s Ricochet podcast), newly minted Speaker of the House John Boehner is preparing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[613,1057,24,172,784],"class_list":["post-8419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-john-boehner","tag-obama","tag-school-choice","tag-state-of-the-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8419"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8424,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8419\/revisions\/8424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}