Why did Councilman Tommy Wells decide to take a hard line against federal funding of school vouchers in his letter Monday to Sen. Dick Durbin? Why buck the majority on the city council who favor some kind of voucher? And Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee? Why risk the ire of hundreds of families whose children now go to private schools thanks to the federal funds? Why argue against a bill coming through Congress backed by Sens. Joe Lieberman and Barbara Boxer? “Discrimination,” Wells tells me. “We tend to believe some discrimination is benign. It’s never benign.” Wells got courage on the voucher issue at a cocktail party on Capitol Hill a week or so ago. Wells found himself chatting with Lisa Raymond, president of the D.C. State Board of Education. Both represent Ward 6, which includes Capitol Hill. Both are passionate about education. Wells served on the old board of education. “The voucher issue is just hanging out there,” Wells tells me he said. Few are hanging on the fence when it comes to vouchers. Liberals and Democrats see it as an evil attack on sacrosanct public education; conservatives and Republicans view it as a way to give poor children the means that rich kids have to attend private schools. Ideologues on all sides tend to use the District of Columbia as their petri dish to breed new policies, such as vouchers. In that vein, Congress in 2003 passed the Opportunity Scholarship Program. It funded a five-year program that let students enter a lottery for cash they could apply to tuition. It ran out in 2008, got extended for a year, and now it’s up for renewal. Over cocktails, Raymond told Wells that no federal funds should go to support private schools of a lesser quality than public schools. As she tells me: “I will never support a voucher program, even if the quality could be improved.” Wells, on the other hand, had vacillated on the issue. When he was on the school board, he had lobbied against vouchers, at the request of D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. But when he saw that many poor kids were actually thriving in private schools, he considered organizing the council in favor of vouchers. Norton and the teachers unions hammered him. His discussion with Raymond sealed the deal, especially when she pointed out that federal funds were going to religious schools, many Catholic, that she argues discriminate against gays and lesbians. “Want to write a letter to Durbin?” he asked. “Love to,” she responded. They asked Durbin, whose subcommittee governs appropriations to D.C., to “join with us in putting an end to this federal subsidy for discriminatory and low-performing schools.” Wells and Raymond took what they believe is the principled position. As the voucher legislation moves through Congress, expect much heat but little light, and eventually, pragmatic politics. Vouchers will get funded for another five-year program. In the end, there may be no benign discrimination, but giving poor kids a chance to attend a private school will win out.
E-mail Harry Jaffe at [email protected].
