The American Pundit

After that, it’ll be killed off. Why eliminate a program proven succesful and costing just a fraction of one of the programs approved in porkulus? Because Obama and his Democratic colleagues have their special interests to protect, namely the NEA. The education of our nation’s children be damned.

President Obama will seek to extend the controversial D.C. school voucher program until all 1,716 participants have graduated from high school, although no new students will be accepted, according to an administration official who has reviewed budget details scheduled for release tomorrow…

The voucher program was created in 2003 and is a Republican favorite, providing low-income students with a maximum $7,500 grant to attend a private or parochial school. All students come from households with incomes below 185 percent of the poverty line, and 8,000 students entered a lottery to participate. But liberal education groups, including the National Education Association, have argued that the experimental program is poorly administered and that voucher recipients have not performed measurably better in their new schools.

In a March 6, 2009 letter to Obama, the NEA president Dennis Van Roekel called the D.C. program “an ongoing threat to public education in the District of Columbia” and urged Obama to “use your voice to help eliminate this threat” by opposing “any efforts to extend this ineffective program.”

The NEA knows the program has proven effective and fears that more children will be attending good private schools rather than run through the ineffective public school cycle the district has to offer. Therefore it’s a “threat” to their interests.

The fact that the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats are willing to put their electoral/special interests above those of the district’s children is a travesty. And by the way, those most harmed by the cancellation of the voucher program? Minority families looking to get their children a great education. Liberal compassion my ass.