The Choice Nazis in Congress are at making sure that DC parents don’t have the same kinds of choices that the Obama family does, by stipulating that federal funds for the DC voucher program will have to be “reautorized” before they can be disbursed:
CONGRESSIONAL Democrats want to mandate that the District’s unique school voucher program be reauthorized before more federal money can be allocated for it. It is a seemingly innocuous requirement. In truth it is an ill-disguised bid to kill a program that gives some poor parents a choice regarding where their children go to school. Many of the Democrats have never liked vouchers, and it seems they won’t let fairness or the interests of low-income, minority children stand in the way of their politics. But it also seems they’re too ashamed — and with good reason — to admit to what they’re doing.
At issue is a provision in the 2009 omnibus spending bill making its way through Congress. The $410 billion package provides funds for the 2009-10 school year to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a pioneering effort that awards scholarships of up to $7,500 a year for low-income students to attend private schools. But language inserted by Democrats into the bill stipulates that any future appropriations will require the reauthorization of the program by Congress and approval from the D.C. Council.
Last night, Obama said that he wants every American to make a commitment to further his education. I wonder when the reprogramming camps start, and how much money Annenberg will be ponying up for my tuition. Rewarding failure starts at home.
Shakespeare class will be held tonight. My apologies for Monday. A neighbor kid took a hockey puck to the face, and I watched the rest of the children while his mom took him to the emergency room.
Why do Democrats hate poor black kids?
“Many of the Democrats have never liked vouchers, and it seems they won’t let fairness or the interests of low-income, minority children stand in the way of their politics. But it also seems they’re too ashamed — and with good reason — to admit to what they’re doing.”
C’mon, what’s more important; giving Sha-ney-ney a shot at a real efucation, or appeasing the teachers unions..?
It’s a no brainer for Democrats; their top contributors and constituencies, big labor, trump all…
Besides, there’s an outside chance that the private schools will be concentrating so much on, you know, actually educating Sha-ney-ney that they’ll leave out the whole identity politics indoctrination, social justice class warfare envy inculcation, and perpetual grievance and outrage stoking through revisionist history programming…
I mean, we can’t have that; they’ll be denied of their automatic ongoing constituency..!
So, they’ll find a way to kill the program; for the fairness!…
Remember, they’re doin’ it for the children!
I am the last person to be correcting out someone elses spelling but methinks this “reautorized†is not correct.
Bob is right on the mark. The last time I checked the three biggest individual contributors to the Democratic Party are:
Teacher’s Unions (Goodbye vouchers!)
Trial Lawyers Assoc. (Tort reform? Hah!)
One of the Unions (Hellooooo card check!)
Wash, rinse and repeat.
Heather McDonald**, responding to AG Holder’s “Nation of Cowards” speech, starkly points out:
Pres. Obama noted this in his address last night:
Does he understand the correlation? Or is he just another of Holder’s cowards?
Comment by BJTexs on 2/25 @ 11:07 am #
But the Republicans are owned by the munition makers, right?
Also from Obama’s speech:
Which programs again? Could it be this DC program he’s referring to? Could be, I think, could be. If it’s working as advertised, which is to say, in the children’s interests, it can’t be working the way the establishment educators like to think of working — that is, in their interests.
Will try to make at least part of the Shakespeare class tonight. Time? And AIM again?
I can’t wait until Diane Sawyer profiles inner city children displaced by this legislation.
Can’t make Shakespear.
Is my birthday. 43 years old.
Bugger.
Young kid you. :-)
Happy birthday!
Dan – just saw this post after I sent my email. I’ll look for you tonight. kthnx
I laughed at your response but then paused … Who does really “own” the Republican Party these days? Seriously, think about it for a minute. Defense contractors? Oil companies? Big Business? Millionaires?
Nope, don’t see that they do. It is a reflection of how far that party has fallen from its foundational principles that I can’t even think up a connected constituency about which I can complain for having undue influence. Which is why I am so amused when some troll comes bouncing to these quarters to call us all “Republican Losers.” Hell, the party “lost” me at least 4 years ago.
Just weird, man.
Chrees
8pm to 10pm Eastern I expect. And Aim also.
Thanks.
Happy Birthday, Mikey!! Can you see the baby chameleon? Of course not! Camouflage, duh.
So you “protect the children” by eliminating a program that actually helps at least some of them? Nice trick, that. I have an idea. Let’s get Washington, DC voting representation in the US Congress. That’ll protect the children even better. Good and hard.
Protect them from an education.
Democrats loves themselves some poor folks…they make so very many of them. The problem is that blacks aren’t a factor in elections – they’ll vote D no matter what. The unions need constant care and feeding to remain loyal.
Great class tonight, Dan. Thanks! I strongly recommend others get involved in this opportunity.
Thanks, Benedick. My hope is that by the time you’re done, you will be able to outshakespeare Shakespeareans. And you show promise in that regard.
So you “protect the children†by eliminating a program that actually helps at least some of them?
A lot of us have been mystified at the behavior of the left the last few years, as they continually undermine American foreign policy, and have wondered aloud if the understand who the enemy really is.
It has become apparent to me that they do know who their enemy is, and I welcome the challenge.
Please elaborate on your snark, meya. Does the high cost of a Sidwell education justify depriving parents of the little choice that they have, somehow? Or, like a good socialist, is your envy selective?
Do you realize that the apparatchiki count on your justifying their privilege exactly as they do, by referring it to the “greater good” that they perform?
“Does the high cost of a Sidwell education justify depriving parents of the little choice that they have, somehow? Or, like a good socialist, is your envy selective?”
I think the high cost of a Sidwell education justifies describing DC school policies as something other than giving people “the same kinds of choices the Obama family” has. You don’t really want Congress to deliver to people “the same kinds of choices the Obama family has” because many of those choices are like “well I choose to spend 30 or 40 thousand a year on tuition.” Or maybe you do want everyone to be able to choose to spend that. In which case I guess Sidwell tuition will go up.
Ah, I see you’re determined to read it your way. What I’m saying is, any choice at all.
Of course not. Let these people exercise “choice” for you. They know what’s best for you in any case.
And I think that you can count on the cost of just about everything going up, meya.
Maybe the congresscritters and presentdents should be required to put their kids in DC public schools.
It shouldn’t be a huge burden. We’re always being told that that the answer is more federal involvement in education. The DC public schools are already under the direct supervision of Congress, so obviously they must be the finest schools in the nation.
Right?
Look at all the money that came to that Chicago hospital when the Obamas got involved.
Dan, you are talking to the hand.
From AGW apologists passing off Gore’s ginormous carbon footprint and carbon offsets paid to his own company to Edwards taking speaking fees to speak on poverty while building a veritable castle to John Kerry’s insufferable Brahminess those of meya’s ilk are content to allow the fostering of the enlightened wealthy elite as long as they sing the song of progressivism and redistribution. They are wholly blind to the fact that Politburo members had all of the dachas, an entrenched socialist aristocracy justified by the greater good of everybody else’s sacrifice.
Thus Obama can keep the White House at 75 degrees while lecturing citizens that their houses should be 68 or driving big ass carbon spewing cars while guilting others about their useful, job related pickup trucks. The Narrative must be served and if a few of the hoi-polloi manage to game the system it is a small price to pay for “fairness” and “caring.”
Individual freedom and liberty be damned when misery pimping is transcendent.
I can’t say for sure whether or not meya or others understand their own facilitation of a particular elitist tyranny but ignorance, both political and economic, is no excuse.
A classic current example is the millions of filthy lucre that European Union MP’s have managed to acquire over the last five years.
I wonder what salaries the dedicated teachers at Sidwell make in comparison to their counterparts in the DC public schools, meya.
Here’s salary for an Upper School Mathematics Teacher at Sidwell: $59,000.
Here are some salaries for DC public school positions. Full time is comparable.
Now, who do you suppose receives better benefits and pension?
Meya has nothing but nitpicking the precise phrasing, imagine that.
Huh, so do you suppose DCPS teachers would rather work at Sidwell or vice-versa?
Would they be qualified to?