DC Vouchers at Crossroads

Campus Report ^ | March 9, 2009 | Bethany Stotts

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DC Vouchers at Crossroads

by: Bethany Stotts, March 09, 2009

Funding for the Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF), more commonly referred to as the DC voucher program, is likely to run out at the end of next academic year due to a sunset provision designed by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D). DC Vouchers were established by Congress in 2003 and serve around 2,000 local low-income students.

Speaking at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) the Executive Director of DC Parents for School Choice expressed her intention to fight for continued funding of the scholarship program.

“I got a call last night, late last night. It was from a parent who has four children in the scholarship program and he said to me ‘Virginia, what are going to do if we lose this program?’ and I said ‘we not going to lose. We’re going to fight,’” said Virginia Walden Ford on February 28.

“We are doing everything we can, getting the word out, but the reality is we could lose,” she later added. “Now, I can’t tell that to 2,000 parents.”

She said, “I have to be strong and stay tough and say we’re going to win but I’m also going to be the person that if we do lose, is going to have to say to those parents ‘I don’t know what you’re going to do. I don’t know where your kids are going to go to school,’ because they’re going to look to their leadership to find answers.”

The Omnibus bill in both houses of Congress provides WSF with one additional year of funding, at which point new revenue would have to be appropriated by Congress and approved by the DC City Council.

Ford considers the City Council hostile to the voucher program....

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“We are doing everything we can, getting the word out, but the reality is we could lose,” she later added. “Now, I can’t tell that to 2,000 parents.”

2,000 parents versus the NEA. No contest, Democrats are deep in the pockets of the NEA. Goodbye vouchers, screw the poor inner-city families.