NEOAVATARA

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7FS5B-CynM

Above:  Great Documentary on vouchers from Reason TV

During the campaign, now President Barack Obama hailed charter schools and more school choice as one of the major reforms in education he believed in.  He even chose a Secretary of Education that professed the same beliefs.

It is really sad that old time Democratic politics has allowed him to let down the children of America.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan apparently decided to sit on a performance review of the D.C. voucher program while Congress debated and later killed the program in March. Well, surprise.  The latest annual evaluation was finally released Friday, and it shows measurable academic gains. The Opportunity Scholarship Program provides $7,500 vouchers to 1,700 low-income families in D.C. to send their children to private schools. Ninety-nine percent of the children are black or Hispanic, and there are more than four applicants for each scholarship.

There is almost universal improvement of children involved in the program.  Those in private schools are showing a half grade superiority over their counterparts in public schools.

The question now is, when did President Obama and Secretary Duncan, as well as Congress, know these results.  And if they knew while these issues were being discussed in Congress, then why wasn’t it released to the public?

As I stated in a blog post last month, I consider the act of throwing 1,800 kids out of their schools an outrage, in a public school district that has one of the highest failure rates in this country.  Furthermore, the Congress didn’t give these children any alternative, while the children of Congress ALL go to private schools.  That is right; not one member living in D.C. has their children going to public schools.  It is a public embarrassment.

If Barack Obama meant anything he said on education during the election, he must answer these basic questions.