The votes keep coming in. Tim Johnson voted to kill the Washington DC scholarship program that allows low income District children to escape that city's dreadful public school system and attend private schools. William McGurn demonstrates just some of the human cost of eliminating this program. Consider Sarah and James Parker, for now class mates of the Obama daughters at Sidwell Friends private school:
The children are Sarah and James Parker. Like the Obama girls, Sarah and James attend the Sidwell Friends School in our nation's capital. Unlike the Obama girls, they could not afford the school without the $7,500 voucher they receive from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Unfortunately, a spending bill the Senate takes up this week includes a poison pill that would kill this program -- and with it perhaps the Parker children's hopes for a Sidwell diploma. (snip)
Deborah Parker says such a move would be devastating for her kids. "I once took Sarah to Roosevelt High School to see its metal detectors and security guards," she says. "I wanted to scare her into appreciation for what she has at Sidwell." It's not just safety, either. According to the latest test scores, fewer than half of Roosevelt's students are proficient in reading or math.
That's the reality that the Parkers and 1,700 other low-income students face if Sen. Durbin and his allies get their way. And it points to perhaps the most odious of double standards in American life today: the way some of our loudest champions of public education vote to keep other people's children -- mostly inner-city blacks and Latinos -- trapped in schools where they'd never let their own kids set foot.
This double standard is largely unchallenged by either the teachers' unions or the press corps. For the teachers' unions, it's a fairly cold-blooded calculation. They're willing to look the other way at lawmakers who chose private or parochial schools for their own kids -- so long as these lawmakers vote in ways that keep the union grip on the public schools intact and an escape hatch like vouchers bolted.
Well, at least we've finally found some spending Tim Johnson opposes. This provision is part of the omnibus spending bill, a bill that represents an 8% increase in discretionary spending and contains over 8,500 earmarks. Tim Johnson voted for cloture on this deficit producing beast. As the Mamma's and Pappa's once sang, "and no one's getting fat except the federal government."
John Thune introduced and amendment to deny any public funds for enforcing the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," whereby the federal government would force radio and television to air opposing viewpoints. This is widely perceived as an attack on conservative talk radio. If you can't beat them, send the regulators after them. Tim Johnson voted against Thune's amendment. Recall that Johnson was one of only eleven Senators voting against Jim DeMint's bill to kill the Fairness Doctrine.
Did South Dakota know that it was electing someone who would toe the liberal line? Of course we didn't really have a campaign last year, so no one seriously questioned Johnson on how he would vote in the future.
Recent Comments