Voucher Analysis

Political Analysis about Washington D.C. Vouchers

News!!All things scurrilous in the dark of night: the House holds and approves voucher vote during Congressional Black Caucus presidential debate in Baltimore. September 10, 2003

Hypocrisy in the House: the House moves closer to passing vouchers and the Senate prepares to consider its version of the bill, both doing for D.C. what it would not for its own districts. September 7, 2003, Melody Webb Esq.

Progressives Abandon the Disadvantaged in Favor of School Vouchers- Progressives Abandon Public Education. August 24, 2003 Melody Webb, Esq.

'Governor Dianne Feinstein'? Governor Gray Davis' Recall and D.C. Vouchers. July 29, 2003

Is The Governor Gray Davis Recall Driving the Voucher Defection by Sen. Feinstein? July 28 2003

Who Is Really Holding Up The D.C. Approriations Bill in Congress? - 18 July 2003

July 7, 2003

Stop DC Vouchers Applauds The Expected Cropp-Fenty Resolution Opposing Vouchers

Rep. Tom Davis and Voting Rights for D.C.? Voting Rights As a Smokescreen for their National Agenda To Spread Vouchers Using The Test Case of Disenfranchised Washington, D.C . July 7, 2003

The Mayor Gives Up on Public Education and Caves on Voting Rights May 2, 2003

The School Board President Takes A Wrong Turn In Choosing To Support Vouchers April 20, 2003

Voucher Commentary

All things scurrilous happen in the dark of night: The House approves by one vote the voucher bill while Members attend scheduled Congressional Black Caucus presidential debate. by Melody Webb, Esq.

September 10, 2003

How is that for a mandate? All supporters of D.C. voucher legislation in Congress claim that the bill reflects a mandate in Washington D.C. and among largely African American school districts around the country. We know that D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's non-voting Member, rejects the bill for her district. What the timing of this bill shows is that there is no mandate among Congressional black leaders and some presidential candidates in the House of Representatives. The leadership had so little confidence in their ability to pass the legislation that they held the vote in the dark of night during the scheduled absence of the members who have a vote and who oppose school vouchers. Just last night, the Congressional Black Caucus resoundingly cheered Senator John Edwards' statement rejecting school vouchers.

How unjust that the non-voting member of congress, Del. Norton is not allowed to vote on the legislation that affects her constituents. How scurrilous that key voting members of Congress were left out of the vote that will likely affect their constituents should the voucher bill pass for D.C. Today D.C., tomorrow Congress will implement in African American inner city districts all over the country.

For shame, for shame - that the leadership of the House pushing vouchers would shut out the presidential candidates and African Americans who are members of Congress in order to advance their national voucher agenda. Sadly, if the false fix of vouchers passes for D.C. and marches across the country, Congress would leave behind 60,000 of the District's children and millions of children nationwide.

The U.S. House's preliminary approval of a voucher plan for D.C. is an abomination of unconstitutional proportions. Unlike anywhere else in the country, D.C. residents lack political power to prevent congressional control over its local education programs. Congress this year voted against vouchers for its own districts under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, but would institute them in D.C.. Senator Feinstein vowed not to support vouchers for California, but does for D.C.. As in the commuter tax case in which I am one of the plaintiffs, we D.C. residents are victims of unequal protection.

The argument in that case, as in this, is that we have no representation in the same legislature that now ignores our will and seeks to intermeddle in our local policymaking. Here Congress would impose a voucher white elephant on our education system; in the commuter tax case, Congress bans us from taxing the income of nonresidents at its source - D.C. - unlike any other place in the country. Should lawmakers pass this voucher plan into law, Congress will deny D.C.'s children what other children across the country have - the right for their parents to direct what happens in their education system. As a parent in the D.C. public schools system, I say on behalf of our parents, we won't stand for it; if Congress ignores our will and passes this law, it could signal the need to join this with the nonresident income tax case by taking this issue to the courts for real justice.

Progressives Abandon the Disadvantaged in Favor of School Vouchers-. August 24, 2003 Melody Webb, Esq.Progressives Abandon Public Education

Name them: Peggy Cooper Cafritz, both a Cafritz philanthropist and D.C.'s School Board President, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, the Washington Post, California's Senator Dianne Feinstein, and columnist E.J. Dionne. Mr. Dionne, of the liberal Brookings Institution, is the latest in a line of progressive thinkers, activists and elected officials who are washing their hands of the tradition of equal opportunity for all that public education enshrines. They do it in the name of giving a potential solution a try. These are the people whom we count on to explore, debate, test, and implement reforms to the systems of public education.

Their reaction these days to the challenges offered by public education: to employ taxpayer subsidies for private schools. They would start with the public schools of our nation's capital and from there ransack public education across the country. The former champions of the same, now turn their backs on the majority of disadvantaged children whom public schools will always have the responsibility of educating.

Public education systems, especially of inner cities, have long been plagued by complex problems that leave unfulfilled the promise of self-advancement for the disadvantaged. It is the good fight to struggle to hone and manage and craft the best education possible for all of society's children. To toil mightily for this is critical if this country is to overcome some of its biggest racial and socioeconomic injustices. To achieve this we must not give up on public education by turning to private school vouchers.

It is the responsibility of the progressive and activist communities to explore the solutions to failing public schools and to vigorously implement them in a way that fixes the schools - not abandons them. When the Washington Post abandons all pretense of good journalistic reporting on the issue of school vouchers – now the single greatest challenge facing public schools - the progressive crusade for public education suffers a damaging blow.

The Washington Post is a voice of the community of D.C. to the community and to the nation. What the Post reports on the issue of vouchers is paramount; it should reflect what is happening in the local D.C. community for the both the community and the entire world to see. That is real journalism. Black Americans rely upon black radio as their media of choice and thanks to Radio One, the majority of black radio - the vehicle with most potential for informing and activating grassroots civic engagement - provides no news. This makes the burden on the Post to tell the entire story of an issue such as this that much greater.

When the Washington Post abandons its mission of separating out its editorial board's support for vouchers from its reporting on vouchers – the progressive cause is lost. The Post has yet to thoroughly examine the impact that vouchers might have on the city's public's school system. When the Washington Post abandons its mission of exploring the community perspective on school vouchers, even as community members mobilize to fight vouchers - we are lost. When the Washington Post fails to measure community reaction against the backdrop of the U.S. Congress and the city’s mayor acting unilaterally to create and support a voucher program, respectively – the cause is lost. This, in a city where the local government’s legislative and fiscal governance are subject to oversight by the U.S. Congress. To fail to tell the entire political story (D.C. resident's side) in this very political war over vouchers - oh, is the cause lost.

Why are the progressives giving up? Is it because they have avoided the surest way of fixing the public school systems of large inner cities like Washington and they feel guilty about that? Is it hypocritical to stop the few poor would-be recipients of vouchers from doing what they do for their own children: opt for a pricey private school education? Here is an idea: forget about vouchers as a fix. Instead hold progressives to the test of real support for education for the poor – challenge them to send their own children to public schools. That would be a real investment in the nation’s troubled public schools: the influence, brainpower, and financial resources of the elite.

In fact, let’s have the nation’s elite conservative voucher proponents direct their kids to down-and-out embattled public schools as well. Parental involvement determines the success of kids and their schools. Maybe we need more of the elite thinkers from both sides of the aisle involved in the public schools to improve them. All would-be public education reformers need to be made to put their children where their mouths are. That will improve public education far more quickly than school vouchers will. Let's get to the job of defeating this voucher plan here and now! We don't have the time, the children, or the future to waste.

'Governor Dianne Feinstein'? Governor Gray Davis' Recall and D.C. Vouchers. July 29, 2003

There are rumors afoot that Senator Feinstein is considering a run for the seat of Governor Gray Davis should he be run out of office in a recall election. This would certainly give greater credence to our belief that Senator Feinstein's change of heart on vouchers (to support them) reflects her desire to generate support among conservative voters in California. In this case, she wants their vote not for a return to her own seat - up in 2006 - but for the office of her fellow Democrat, Governor Gray Davis. D.C. politics are never just about politics in D.C.. Until Washington, D.C. residents have real, unmitigated democracy - full voting rights in the House and Senate and complete control over policy and laws affecting everything from its schools to its commuter employees, what happens to D.C. residents will always be subject to events happening somewhere else in the country.

Read the letter from Jack O'Connell, the California Department of Education Superintendent of Public Instruction asking Sen. Feinstein to oppose the voucher plan incorporated in the D.C. Appropriations Subcommittee.

Is The Governor Gray Davis Recall Driving the Voucher Defection by Sen. Feinstein? July 28 2003

Are California politics holding the D.C. Appropriations bill hostage? Inasmuch as California politics are forcing Senator Feinstein (D- CA) to defect from her Democratic colleagues and support vouchers for D.C. - maybe so. That is how one might see Senator Feinstein's new-found consideration of vouchers as the saving grace of public education in D.C.. Senator Dianne Feinstein has rocked the liberal establishment by becoming the swing vote on a voucher program for local Washington, D.C.., abandoning not one but two traditionally Democratic stances in the process. Sadly, she may be driven by internal California politics, in which liberal Democrat Gray Davis is facing a recall challenge that may actually unseat him in favor of a conservative politician. The message coming from California through this muscular campaign to oust Governor Davis is that liberals are out; conservatives - in.

Senator Feinstein is midway through her term - but it is never too soon to entertain reelection concerns. And although Californians resoundingly defeated school voucher ballot initiatives in 1993 and 2000, politics have changed in California since then. Californians are for the first time ever subjecting their governor to a recall vote.. Could the political winds of California be blowing the Senator to this new conservative position? Not only is she abandoning her long-time opposition to private school vouchers in considering support of a program that the GAO has given anemic reviews. By embracing school vouchers, she is also cutting herself loose from her long time support of self-government for congressionally overseen Washington, D.C. Local D.C. does not want vouchers. The popular D.C. Councilmembers Adrian Fenty (D - DC - 4), Phil Mendelson (D- D.C.- at-large), and Council Chair Linda Cropp, as well as a majority of the D.C. School Board (in a 2002 resolution) have come out against vouchers, echoing the overwhelming numbers of D.C. residents, who when polled in November 2002, confirmed the 1981 referendum outcome in which they rejected public subsidies for parochial and private schools. Yet again local D.C. policy is being driven by outside forces. Where is democracy when we need it?

So, it could be that because Congress has direct authority to institute federal programs in D.C. without local D.C.'s consent, Californians are having a bigger say in our local education policy than we D.C. residents have. What do politics in California have to do with the price of tea in D.C.? Maybe everything. If only we could recall our governors - the U.S. Congress who runs D.C..

Who Is Really Holding Up The D.C. Approriations Bill in Congress? - 18 July 2003

Shame on the Washington Post. Their reporting on the voucher issue is shamelessly biased. The latest example of it: the story, Foes Halt Vote on School Vouchers, on the Senate Appropriations committee stand-off of yesterday that shows blatant spin to support your agenda favoring vouchers. You did not report on what happened. You characterized it. And you have it all wrong. So please, let's set the record straight - let's look at who is actually blocking a 'clean' D.C. budget, as was passed by the Council and approved by the Mayor. That's right - the conservative ideologues - largely the Republicans. The supporters of public ed who are fighting this voucher 'rider' are the champions doing the right thing for D.C. - trying to keep the budget bill true to its purpose: funding expenditures that D.C. - through its elected officials - has spent lots of sweat, tears, critical services and jobs hammering out.

It is dangerous for us to allow the Post's spin on this to go unchallenged, leaving an insidious and incorrect impression of what is happening. The Post implies -and we know that media influence is huge - that Senate Democrats are the enemies of home rule, of budget priorities that we have expressed vis-a-vis tying up the D.C. budget in committee.

'Foes Halting the Vote' (title of this article) on the budget bill - meaning the Democrats opposed to the voucher add-on.? Puh - leez. The real foes are those rascals trying to tell us that we need a program that has been rejected by D.C. voters in a 1981 referendum, in a poll as recently as November of 2002. The real foes are those scoundrels who want to impose an experiment that does not work, that wants to subsidize private and parochial schools and foster discrimination on religious grounds as well as be exempt from the requirements to educate special needs children as appropriate.

The real foes are those who would exempt their voucher program schools from the same mandates that they now impose upon the very public schools which Bush's No Child Left Behind law is supposed to fix and which they are now cutting off at the knees by underfunding. The real foes are those who would in good conscience fashion an unconscionable and unjust solution to our public ed woes that would serve 2,000 children and leave the vast majority behind (approximately 78,000 in D.C.'s traditional and charter schools).

Let's not forget who the real foes are of getting passed a budget critical to one of the nation's poorest, most-HIV infected, most poorly housed people in the country, most crime victimized community in the world. Those who read the post for unbiased reporting will hopefully not walk away from this article thinking that they have just the facts; because indeed they have is your poorly concealed agenda.

July 7, 2003

Stop DC Vouchers Applauds The Expected Cropp-Fenty Resolution Opposing Vouchers

Group Urges Residents to Continue the 250 email/petition push and Flood Council with Calls Supporting No Deal To Swap Voucher Approval for Public Schools Funding.

Washington, D.C. -- Staff in the offices of both D.C. Council Chair Linda Cropp (D- At large) and Councilmember Adrian Fenty (D- Ward 4) today indicated that the two Councilmembers are expected tomorrow, Tuesday, July 8, to co-introduce an anti-voucher sense-of-the-council resolution in the Council's final legislative session of the year. Stop D.C. Vouchers applauds this move by the Council.

"This is democracy in action and given the congressional mark-up of the voucher bill this week, it is a sound strategic move that should leave Congress in no doubt as to how Washington, D.C. residents feel about school vouchers. Rep. Davis, by pushing this voucher bill, is ignoring D.C.'s 1981 referendum against vouchers and ignoring the polls of late 2002 that reflect D.C. residents' opposition to vouchers. if and when the Council voices the will of the people by approving the Cropp-Fenty resolution - Mr. Davis and Congress will have to pay attention and drop their incessant push for school vouchers in D.C. Three cheers for the real representatives of the people - Councilmembers Cropp and Fenty" stated Melody Webb, a DCPS parent who runs Stop D.C. Vouchers, a grass-roots and online effort to organize residents to fight the attempted institution of vouchers in D.C.. Ms. Webb is an attorney who works to reform the D.C. public schools.

Stop D.C. Vouchers urges officials to reject any deals that are offered to grant funds for public schools in exchange for city official's support of any taxpayer-funded private school tuition grants plan by Congress. Recent news reports indicate that Councilmember Chavous (D - Ward 7), one of three local officials publicly on record in support of vouchers, will support an anti-voucher resolution in the Council. However, Councilmember Chavous is expected to oppose vouchers only for as long as Congress fails to include in its plan dollars for the city's public traditional and charter schools. "There should be no quid pro quo. City officials must do right by our children and reject any deal that includes vouchers. If vouchers are bad in a voucher-only plan; then they are bad in a voucher plus public school funding scheme. Bad is bad. Period." stated Ms. Webb.

Rep. Tom Davis and Voting Rights for D.C.? Voting Rights As a Smokescreen for their National Agenda To Spread Vouchers Using The Test Case of Disenfranchised Washington, D.C. July 7, 2003

Republican School Voucher Push: Solutions -
In the context of the struggle to stop the voucher push in D.C., readers of themail (a local D.C. online publication
have written eloquently of the unfair comparison between the performance of D.C. school students (residents of a poor central city) and those students in cities and states with a vastly more varied demographic makeup than that
of Washington. Themail contributors have made a wonderful new commitment to exploring solutions to match problems discussed in themail. A solution to this particular continued assault on D.C. schools and students is for us all to get moreinvolved in the debate on an issue critical to the future of D.C. school students -private school vouchers. What an affront this push is by the Republican Rep. Tom Davis (R- Va) and President George Bush to impose their solution to D.C.'s public education problem, at the expense of D.C. self-governance.

(How hypocritical that Mr. Davis now wants to give us a single vote in Congress (representational democracy) when he would ignore the 1981 referendum and opinion polls of D.C. residents rejecting vouchers (self governance democracy)!)

Rep. Davis and company have lately been nobly busy working on behalf of D.C.'s residents. In the span of a few weeks, Rep. Davis has introduced a new congressional D.C. voucher bill (Rep. Flake (R- Arizona) was the author of the first House voucher plan of this 108th Congress); he has inflicted the federal backstab to the Mayor in the process (the feds had promised money for the public charter and traditional schools to accompany the Mayor's new-found support for vouchers). Mr. Davis has held a hearing on the voucher legislation (HR-2556),
and his markup will happen sometime next week. What a fast track! Just yesterday - Tuesday - Pres. Bush used a local public charter school as the backdrop to reinvigorate the unpopular plank of his national education
platform (vouchers) to promote the same for D.C.. Vouchers comprise the Republican party's solution for our local public education problem. If we want solutions - how about Republicans fully fund the federal special education mandate, which is nationally about 22% below what was promised 30 years ago?

How about fund the federal Bush's own No Child Left Behind mandates for ensuring accountability through teacher training and student testing, but was under-funded by $6 billion last year and so far in the House this year now is $9 billionshort. Lest we be fooled about the President's intent on behalf of D.C. public school students, of which my children are two, there is no extra money for our public schools in the President's budget.

I have written before about this issue, and many have done their research and taken action. Superb. What can you do about this exploitation of ourdisenfranchisement to impose a privatization scheme on our public schools,
against our will? Let's keep up the good work by signing a petition at www.stopdcvouchers.org/petition.htm
<http://www.stopdcvouchers.org/petition.htm> and by emailing, Mr. Mayor, Mr.Davis, Ms. Cafritz, and asking the Council to sponsor a resolution against vouchers at <http://www.stopdcvouchers.org/vouchers.htm>. Thank our championon this issue, Mr. Fenty also. Look out for the mark-up of Davis' voucher plan, likely to happen sometime next week in the Rayburn House Office Building. Call for details and tell Rep. Davis to leave D.C. residents and
their schools alone! Mr. Davis' number is 202-225-1492.

The Mayor Gives Up on Public Education and Caves on Voting Rights May 2, 2003

It is clear that this attempt to impose a voucher system is a prime example of Congress' disdain for home rule, and an example of why we need a vote in Congress, because whereas everybody else in the country gets to choose whether to use federal funds for vouchers or not, D.C residents have it imposed on them.

Today, Eleanor Holmes Norton importuned all levels of democracy to stand with her and said "don't forsake me" by supporting this legislation. Those standing with her for home rule and voting rights include Councilmembers Fenty, Brazil and Mendelson, and various school board members. So, it is shocking that less than three weeks after the Mayor stood at Freedom Plaza and expressed his support for voting rights and home rule that he has today come out in favor of this voucher plan. It is a kick in the teeth to the democracy movement. As a support of democracy, Delegate Norton has been dumped first by Cafritz, and now by the Mayor and Kevin Chavous.

The Mayor is selling out home rule by accepting a quid pro quo, namely that by accepting money for charter schools and regular public schools he will support a voucher program. He is saying that he will take this voucher plan which D.C. does not want, if Congress gives money to the public schools. The bottom line is that D.C voters rejected this in a referendum in 1982, and recent opinion polls have supported that same result. So, this is a sell-out, no matter how you slice it. This plan did not originate in the community.

In 1997 the last time Congress tried to do this it took a presidential veto to override it. So, we have to stop this thing right now, because this president is not going to veto this.

I am preparing a press release condemning the Mayor's actions, and calling him to task. I think that it is imperative that as many democracy supporters as possible show a united front on this, and so I would like to include quotes from you on it. Please reply to me with your suggested text.

Another way to tell the Mayor that you disapprove of his actions and encourage him to withdraw his support is to go to this page - www.leavedc.com/vouchers.htm - and send an email, or print out a letter to fax. That page will include a letter to the Mayor by Friday morning. As with all the letters on this site, you can modify the text to say whatever you want. Again, please encourage all your friends to do the same. And I wonder how he would respond to getting lots of phone calls on this.

I'll send you soon a flyer with details about the rally, at which your presence is critical. This issue is a convergence of education policy and voting rights. Let's pitch in as part of the overall effort to stop Congress from having its way with our city, and to show Congress and the nation the depth of our feelings about this.

It is a crying shame that we have to be on the defensive like this, warding off Congressional encroachments, and keeping our own elected officials on the straight and narrow. Once this speedbump is behind us, I hope we can all get back to the collective progressive agenda of democracy.

The School Board President Takes A Wrong Turn In Choosing To Support Vouchers April 20, 2003

In the letter to the editor of Sat. April 19, 2003, D.C. School Board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz clarifies her position on federal voucher legislation and her reason for supporting the Congressional plan (sponsored by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ-6)) which would use 'new' money ($7 million in 2004) to create a private foundation to administer school tuition vouchers to children meeting a means test - up to 185% of the poverty line. Ms. Cafritz's rationale for her change in stance on vouchers baffles and speaks volumes about the plight of our school system. The head of the entity charged with making policy for the D.C. schools has not 'evolved' into her position favoring vouchers, as she says in her letter. Ms. Cafritz has instead 'caved'. She backs the voucher proposal principally because (1)she believes that it is a fait accompli with a Republican majority in Congress and in the White House - .and because (2) she knows that parents are unhappy with the public schools. Thankfully she stopped short of actually pillorying the public schools herself to make her point.

Ms. Cafritz' support for vouchers is a vote of no confidence in the public schools over which she presides. There are some points of light in the D.C. Public Schools; we recently completed DCPS' new lottery system to award slots in some of the highly sought-after top flight schools that do exist in DCPS. I am a DCPS parent and not the only DCPS graduate to ever earn undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University. I am disappointed that Ms. Cafritz chooses not to fight the power of the Congressional-White House team, but instead caves to it when she very well could help defeat the plan. A Congressionally sponsored voucher measure was thwarted in 1998. In addition, I regret that Ms. Cafritz also fails to address (and challenge) the merits of school vouchers as a policy for delivering better educational value to students over the traditional public schools or charter schools. Vouchers use public money for private schools, this money could be used to replicate those model public schools of the DCPS that D.C. parents have stood in lines in some cases for days to gain entrance to. Republicans claim the voucher program funding is new; yet investment in school vouchers is an inherent divestment from public schools.

If she has been swayed by one set of parental voices on this issue; there is another set to hear. I, for one, as a DCPS parent am mobilizing other parents through meetings and online at www.LeaveDC.com to fight this voucher initiative. This voucher plan is being imposed by Congress, and is not by the way, a product of grassroots legislative support in local Washington, D.C. This is Congressional exploitation of our disenfranchisement. Ms. Cafritz is wrong to concede defeat to Congressman Jeff Flake, whose likely agenda with vouchers is really to win Senator John McCain's seat in 2004 on a platform of promoting school choice. I urge all willing to join me. We must not accept the inevitability of the Republican attempt to impose vouchers on D.C. Our pro- D.C. voting rights community and supporters of our public schools must write Congress and Congress' constituents to thwart this plan being forced on our community. What a sad lesson in civics Ms. Cafritz is teaching DCPS students by caving. What a sad display of confidence in the public school system she is showing current and future parents residing in D.C.. Let's join together now to reverse this.

See the Legislative Background of the DC voucher plans in Congress.

New - Call Congress Now!

Read about Congress' political relationship to local Washington, D.C.