I n the course of a bold speech to the NAACP last week, presidential candidate John McCain strongly endorsed the District of Columbia’s Opportunity Scholarship Program. McCain has no chance of winning D.C.’s three electors in November, so it was especially heartening that he is paying serious attention to the District’s education problems.
McCain touted the District’s scholarship program in specific language, noting that “more than 7,000 more families have applied for that program. What they all have in common is the desire to get their kids into a better school.”
“Parents ask only for schools that are safe, teachers who are competent, and diplomas that open doors of opportunity,” he said. “When a public system fails, repeatedly, to meet these minimal objectives, parents ask only for a choice in the education of their children. Some parents may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private school.
“Many will choose a charter school. No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity.”
In endorsing the Opportunity Scholarships, McCain is joining with a host of local officials, including Mayor Adrian Fenty and former Mayors Anthony Williams and Marion Barry.
And he is responding to empirical evidence that the program already can boast some real successes: In addition to successfully promoting voluntary racial integration, the program has made parents more engaged in their children’s education, more confident in their safety, and more focused on academic performance, according to studies by the U.S. Department of Education and Georgetown University.
McCain’s support for the District’s program was part of a broader endorsement of school choice nationwide, along with funding for recruitment of teachers and bonus payments for superior ones — including through sources such as Teach for America and the New Teacher project, private organizations that welcome smart and committed teachers regardless of whether they are “certified” by government bureaucracies.
His stances put him at odds with the powerful education unions, but on the side of parents and on the side of excellence in education.
The fact is that almost everywhere school choice has been tried — with or without private school options — it has proved popular and enduring.
Yet so powerful are the education unions that politicians who support school choice have often found that they have reaped a whirlwind.
McCain’s straight talk, in front of an audience that politely but overwhelmingly supported McCain’s opponent, was just the sort of thing needed in order to give hope to poor families trapped in failing schools.
