President Obama spoke to our schoolchildren on Tuesday and told them how important (and cool) it was to do their homework and stay in school. I believe he also said that their success depended on them--not their schools. Good thing. As he was making this speech, he was taking the chance at a quality education away from 1,700 low income children in Washington, D. C.
According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal:
"The D.C. voucher program has proven to be the most effective education policy evaluated by the federal government's official education research arm so far," writes the Education Department's chief evaluator Patrick Wolf in the current issue of Education Next. "On average, participating low-income students are performing better in reading because the federal government decided to launch an experimental school choice program in our nation's capital."
This is the program the White House and Congress shut down earlier this year. The problem with shutting down this program is the fact that the President and the majority of members of Congress who live in Washington send their children to private schools. If they are unwilling to put their children in the failing schools they supervise, why are they unwilling to help other children access the educational opportunities available to their children.
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