DEMOCRAT POLS STILL SCREWING THE POOR

Someday, somehow, those classified as the poor in America are going to figure out that the Democrat party cynically uses them to further their political agenda. Dems, in truth, could care less about actually improving the lot of poor people. After all, they need the poor to promote themselves.

Historically, most Democrat sponsored social programs supposedly designed to help poor folks in fact trap the poor in an endless cycle of poverty. By keeping the poor impoverished, the Dems can continue to push all sorts of cash to their favorite constituencies in the name of helping those less fortunate.

The article below is a case in point. In Washington DC there is a federally funded school voucher program in place that is popular, and as you can read, effective. It serves the very poor, which in the case of this particular program, is composed almost entirely of minorities.

DC government schools are notoriously pathetic even though more than $14,000 per student per year is spent on K-12 education. Obviously, as is the case virtually everywhere in the country, throwing money at educrats has enriched their lives while it has robbed kids of any kind of quality schools.

Even the DC District Superintendent acknowledges the state of those schools and fully supports the voucher program in question. It is a program that is extremely popular with parents, effective for kids and supported by top district administration. It is a program that has worked for the poor and thus made a difference. And the per voucher expense to the government is about half of the per pupil spending in those schools.

So naturally the Dem pols in Congress want to end the program. Since it is working for the benefit of the poor, it has to go. Why is that one might wonder? Easy. The program is opposed by the teacher's unions and Dems bend over for unions. That massive per pupil spending in DC goes primarily to, as you would surmise, personnel costs. In other words, most of the money ends up in the pockets of union members. In return, kids get some of the worst government provided education in the world.

Should the poor ever figure out who is really screwing them over, the Democrat party will take a huge hit. Granted, Dems will still be a wholly owned subsidiary of labor unions but the excuse they use to grease the skids of their favorite voting block will be gone. Poor people in American will eventually come to understand that they are being used by politicians who manipulate their circumstances for political advantage without doing anything meaningful or worthwhile for those very folks most in need.

Obama has yet to support those vouchers even while he claims to want to wholly make over government education to the benefit of students.

Well Mr. President, these vouchers work and they save money. Take a stand for what is right and what is in the best interests of children trapped in poverty. These kids live in your neighborhood and even though you do not send your kids to local government schools (of course), you can do wonders for the others who could use the help.

Or you can stand by and allow Congress to again pay off a bunch of educrats who are doing a lousy job educating but a good job failing.

Actions speak much louder than words.


Obama's School Choice
Democrats want to kill vouchers for 1,700 poor kids.

President Obama made education a big part of his speech Tuesday night, complete with a stirring call for reform. So we'll be curious to see how he handles the dismaying attempt by Democrats in Congress to crush education choice for 1,700 poor kids in the District of Columbia.
The omnibus spending bill now moving through the House includes language designed to kill the Opportunity Scholarship Program offering vouchers for poor students to opt out of rotten public schools. The legislation says no federal funds can be used on the program beyond 2010 unless Congress and the D.C. City Council reauthorize it. Given that Democrats control both bodies -- and that their union backers hate school choice -- this amounts to a death sentence.
Republicans passed the program in 2004, with help from Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, and it has been extremely popular. Families receive up to $7,500 a year to attend the school of their choice. That's a real bargain, given that D.C. public schools spend $14,400 per pupil on average, among the most in the country.
To qualify, a student's household income must be at or below 185% of the poverty level. Some 99% of the participants are minority, and the average annual income is $23,000 for a family of four. A 2008 Department of Education evaluation found that participants had higher reading scores than their peers who didn't receive a scholarship, and there are four applicants for each voucher.
Vouchers also currently exist in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, Utah and Wisconsin. And school choice continues to proliferate elsewhere in the form of tax credits and charter schools. The District's is the only federally funded initiative, however, and local officials from former Mayor Anthony Williams to current Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee support its continuation. As Ms. Rhee put it in a December 2007 interview with the Journal, "I would never, as long as I am in this role, do anything to limit another parent's ability to make a choice for their child. Ever."
Ms. Rhee is working to reform all D.C. public schools, which in 2007 ranked last in math and second-to-last in reading among all U.S. urban school systems on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress. Without the vouchers, more than 80% of the 1,700 kids would have to attend public schools that haven't made "adequate yearly progress" under No Child Left Behind. Remember all of those Members of Congress standing and applauding on Tuesday as Mr. Obama called for every American child to get some education beyond high school? These are the same Members who protect and defend a D.C. system in which about half of all students fail even to graduate from high school.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama spoke of the "historic investment in education" in the stimulus bill, which included a staggering, few-strings-attached $140 billion to the Department of Education over two years. But he also noted that "our schools don't just need more resources; they need more reform," and he expressed support for charter schools and other policies that "open doors of opportunity for our children."
If he means what he says, Mr. Obama won't let his fellow Democrats consign 1,700 more poor kids to failing schools he'd never dream of letting his own daughters attend.

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