Students missing class gathered with politicians and parents by the hundreds on Capitol Hill Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to save the District of Columbia’s private school voucher program.
Since earning passage in Congress in 2003, the program has granted federally funded vouchers for children to attend private school in the District. But this year, a Democratic Congress is less inclined to renew it.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the appropriations subcommittee responsible for the vouchers’ funding, has criticized the program for a lack of proof that students are doing any better in private schools than in public institutions.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has recommended continued funding only until the 1,700 students currently enrolled have graduated.
But parents, students and teachers have consistently expressed enthusiastic support.
Wearing a yellow shirt emblazoned with “Put Kids First,” Anacostia resident Virginia Thomas shouted support for the program that allows her to send two children to Academia de la Recta Porta International Christian Day School.
“They are excellent children, they are polite, they are mannerable, they don’t fight, they don’t cuss,” she said, explaining that private school offers a more orderly environment than Anacostia’s public options.
As she cheered, speakers not often in agreement took to the podium. D.C. Councilman Marion Barry, D-Ward 8, altered the words of the spiritual “Go Down Moses” to “Go down, Mr. President, go down to the Capitol and save D.C. schools.”
Barry was followed by President George W. Bush’s education secretary Margaret Spellings — an advocate during her four years in office.
Father Stephen Carter, pastor at Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Mount Pleasant, made the trip with his students.
“There’s a lot of praying going on,” Carter said, dressed in the brown cloak of Franciscans. “You wait for a miracle. Because it’s a long shot — a very long shot.”
