NJ’s DC Democrats Abandon Poorest Constituents

By Mayor Mike Halfacre, Fair Haven

Last Tuesday, President Obama gave a key policy speech focusing on education, including the possibility of merit pay for teachers, increasing the number of charter schools, and other reforms. Also on Tuesday, Governor Corzine spoke about the importance of education as part of his State budget address. While everyone agrees that education is important, Democrats in Congress are only paying lip service to improving the quality of our poorest children’s education, with their actions speaking louder than their words.

Congressional Democrats, who have little control over most local school districts, have put restrictions on federal financing for a school voucher program in the District of Columbia, and they are urging the DC schools chancellor to prepare the public schools to re-enroll, in fall 2010, some 1,700 students currently attending private schools at taxpayer expense. While there is much debate about school voucher programs in general, the DC program is by all accounts a success, with not only parents, but the DC schools chancellor advocating for the program’s continuation.

Michelle A. Rhee, the schools chancellor, said in the New York Times that she did not share the negative view of vouchers held by many big-city superintendents.

“Part of my job is to make sure that all kids get a great education, and it doesn’t matter whether that’s in charter, parochial or public schools,” Ms. Rhee said. “I don’t think vouchers are going to solve all the ills of public education, but parents who are zoned to schools that are failing kids should have options to do better by their kids.”

Yet the most recent budget bill recently passed by the democratically controlled House of Representatives specifically seeks to put kids back into failing schools.

Democrats in Washington are playing politics with the lives of the children in the voucher program. The program was initiated in 2004 by a Republican-controlled Congress. It provides scholarships of up to $7,500 annually to cover tuition, fees and transportation expenses for about 1,700 Kindergarten through 12th Grade children to attend private school. Some 90 percent of the participating students have been African-American, and an additional 9 percent Hispanic. The bill that is expected to be signed by President Obama today will require these 1,700 students to re-matriculate back to their failing local schools.

As stated in a Washington Post editorial opposing the plan, someone needs to tell the parents of these poor and minority children why a bunch of elected officials who can send their children to any school they choose are taking that option away from them.

The change to the DC voucher program would be bad enough on its own. But the change comes as part of an orgy of spending that has gripped Washington. In the past two weeks, the House of Representatives and Senate both approved the $410 Billion spending bill, called an “omnibus bill” that is designed to keep the federal government operating until the end of the fiscal year. This bill contains language that will eliminate spending for the voucher program, and specifically directs the chancellor to prepare to accept the voucher children back into the public schools.

The bill passed by the House consists of 1,132 pages with over 8,000 individual earmarks that add billions of dollars of pet project spending from our elected representatives in Congress. The 12th District’s Rush Holt (D) is responsible for three individual earmarks totaling $652,500.00 and is a part of 64 other earmarks that total in excess of $67 million. The 6th District’s Frank Pallone is responsible for five earmarks, totaling $1,413,000.00 and is a part of 29 other earmarks that total in excess of $18,548,000. Senators Menendez and Lautenberg are a part of 171 and 173 earmarks, respectively, totaling over 158,750,500.00 each.

Congressmen Holt and Pallone and Senators Menendez and Lautenberg voted yes on the omnibus bill, choosing to spend billions on earmarks, yet can not spare a couple of million for the poorest of our nation’s children. It goes without saying that such action is not the hope that President Obama talked about nor the change DC families want.