“We’re losing several generations of kids, and something has to be done.” Those words are coming back to haunt President Obama in a new series of television and radio ads on behalf of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. In the ads, a DC mother asks the president why he got to use scholarships to attend good schools but is now denying them to students like her daughter. Under the program, low-income DC Public School students had been eligible to use scholarships to attend local private schools-until the president signed legislation killing it–one day after pledging his administration would follow a “whatever works” strategy when it comes to education reform. The ads launched last month airing on FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, and the local News Channel 8. Former D.C. Councilmember Kevin Chavous of DC Children First explained in one of the ads, “President Obama is ending a program that helps low-income kids go to better schools, refusing to let any new children in.” Commenting on the support the ads have generated, Chavous said, “It goes to show that the folks in this town embrace choice full-throttle.” Some folks, however, don’t. “Vouchers are not real education reform,” according to Diane Shust, Government Relations director for the National Education Association, “Pulling children out of the public school system doesn’t solve problems–it ignores them.” However, a 2006 statement by George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers Union, whose parent union is the American Federation of Teachers, shed some light on what the country’s national teachers unions really mean by “problems”: “The landscape has changed. Our parents are voting with their feet…As kids continue leaving the system, we will lose teachers. Our very survival depends on having kids in D.C. schools so we’ll have teachers to represent.” Chavous suspects that the Obama administration “made a calculated decision that they could wait us out . . . We’re not going anywhere until these kids get into these schools. It’s just the right thing to do.” Such conviction is contagious. Bi-partisan Congressional bills to continue the program have been introduced in both the House and the Senate. Even Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), author of the “poison pill” language effectively killing the program in the first place, is apparently having a change of heart. So, Mr. President, are you?
