Posted on 09/03/2003 8:28:41 PM PDT by frmrda
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) announced yesterday that she will support a $13 million school voucher plan for the District, breaking a deadlock in a Senate committee and setting President Bush's school choice initiative on a clear path to passage barring a Democratic filibuster.
In an interview, Feinstein said she would break party ranks when the Senate Appropriations Committee meets today to vote on the measure and the District's $5.6 billion budget for fiscal 2004. The full House of Representatives has scheduled a vote tomorrow on a vouchers-only bill, which the legislation's sponsor, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), said yesterday he expected would pass.
The votes this week would pave the way for a five-year program providing federal grants of as much as $7,500 per student to subsidize private school tuition for at least 2,000 low-income children in the District. The Senate measure, unlike the $15 million House bill, also provides about $26 million in additional funding for the District's public schools, including charter schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I'm real interested to see if the threatened filibuster happens.
In an interview, Feinstein said she would break party ranks when the Senate Appropriations Committee meets today to vote on the measure and the District's $5.6 billion budget for fiscal 2004.
Wow $13mm out of $5.6b - less than 1/4 of 1%.
Gotta keep that D.C. teachers union flush with cash. They have alot of overhead.
Easy. Liberals can't wait to destroy one of the few non-government controlled institutions left. The private school. There's a reason they're called private.
Actually I'm not in favor of the voucher system. All schools should be held to a standard or loose their funding, period. It really makes me laugh to hear how new schools or repaired schools will improve education. Oh well---
The democrats can ill afford the debate, as Feinstein's "defection" proves. The democrats don't want to be under the "microscope" of the evening news trying to explain why parents should keep their children in failing schools, when there is a real workable alternative (vouchers).
Once most American families realize that the republicans want to help them get their children out of the lousy public schools, the democrat party will be history. The democrats are joined at the hip with the NEA, so it will be next to impossible for the party to support vouchers, unless they can water them down to the point of uselessness. If the republicans can prevent this, they will win.
Parents are tired of and fed up with the violence, drugs, permissiveness, homosexual agenda, socialist propaganda, anti-religion, poor academics, un-certified teachers, poor test scores, social promotions, and anti-traditional family garbage the NEA, Hollywood, the leftist music industry and the Democrat Party have heaped upon our educational system.
Bush, at the beginning of his term said that the public schools would have three years to get things in order, and he ok'ed a bunch of money to get it done. Of course, the leftists have continued down the same old road for the last three years, and now Bush has a near perfect plank for his re-election platform......allowing American families to put their children in the school of their own choosing.
If they want to keep their children in public school, fine....if they don't want to keep their children in public school, they shouldn't have to. This is a win-win for the republicans.
As for me and my family, we gave our children the choice of either going to public school or homeschooling. They all gravitated to homeschooling, and are all doing very well.... exceptionally well.
You take the King's coin, you do the King's bidding.
As for me and my family, we gave our children the choice of either going to public school or homeschooling.
You mean to tell me that you exercised your "freedom of choice" for educating your students without involving other taxpayers' money? Sounds like a good idea to me, something the voucher liberals could emulate.
Well, she's not going to seek another term, so it makes sense she might actually do something to HELP instead of hinder kids stuck in public schools.
She's been on record supporting the idea for a while. Now she needs to back the idea for kids in her own home state, and nationwide.
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