“Hello, Pharoah, let my people go!”
Invoking Moses, who demanded the release of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, D.C. Councilman Marion Barry demanded justice for Washington’s students from Congress at a rally for school choice Wednesday near the White House. He’s a man known for being on the wrong end of justice more frequently than an advocate for it.
But he couldn’t be more right in his support for federally funded school vouchers for DC students, until Wednesday in jeopardy of being eliminated. Nor could his rhetoric be more apt – because school choice is no mere debate. It is about being given an education that makes D.C. students free to choose their future for themselves or one that often condemns them to the life of poverty many were born into.
By the timing of it, President Barack Obama heeded Barry’s call and that of the cries of current and former D.C. officials and the 1,000 plus crowd of students, their parents and teachers in yellow t-shirts who came out to demand federal officials “put children first.”
He said Wednesday that his budget included $12.2 million to allow children currently enrolled in the program, created in 2003, to keep scholarships through their graduation. But he said no new children could win them.
That is a relief for those families, many of whom have multiple children enrolled in private schools through the scholarships. But it is like handing out life jackets to only a few passengers on a sinking ship when there are enough for everyone on board.
About 1,700 low-income DC children receive Opportunity Scholarships, which range in price up to $7,500 to attend the school of their choice. A recent report in The Washington Post put the cost per pupil in DC public schools at $25,000 – reason alone to expand the program.
According to a three-year analysis of the program by the Department of Education, children with the scholarships are reading ahead of their peers in public schools but are not outperforming them in math.
Opponents of the program, including Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, say all federal money should go to public schools and cite the research as a reason to end the program. In a March letter to Democrats in Congress he wrote, “Rather than offering a chance for a few, we should be ensuring that every child has access to a great public school.”
The problem with his argument is that great public schools are not available to most children in D.C. and in many of America’s inner cities, where the worst have high school graduation rates under 40 percent.
Washington’s graduation rate is less than 60 percent. And as a few speakers said at the rally, this is not an either or situation, it’s one where multiple options should be tried to provide students the best possible education.
Parents at the rally clearly loved the program, including D.C. resident Victor Contrera, whose four children, ages 7, 10, 12 and 14, attend Sacred Heart School on scholarships. Contrera, who does not speak English, said he saw a change in attitude in his children upon entering Sacred Heart and said “everything is better” in comparison to the public schools where they had been attending.
Nate Curwen, an English-as-a-Second Language teacher at Sacred Heart, said one of the best things about the scholarships are that they provide “consistency – something so many of these kids don’t have” because of trying family situations and frequent moves.
Donna Mebane, a teacher at Bridges Academy, said the school’s curriculum pushes children more than the courses in D.C. public schools. She teaches the Old English epic poem “Beowulf” to her middle school students — something their peers would only read in high school and college.
Performance shows that scholarships are no magic cure for poor reading and math comprehension and can not fix discipline problems or a lack of parent involvement in a child’s life. But they were never meant to be an instant fix for sub-standard learning.
Changing a lifetime, even a short one, of bad study habits and a negative attitude toward achievement that so many disadvantaged children wear like a badge of honor takes years to undo – and may never happen.
But supporting a program that at the very least does no harm, improves reading comprehension, provides great parental
satisfaction – and costs less than a public school education, is one Congress should expand.
Four times as many children who have the scholarships want them. Those statistics speak for themselves. Members of Congress, listen to Marion Barry.
Examiner columnist Marta H. Mossburg is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute.
