President Obama and education

The furor over President Obama choosing to give a televised speech to America's children on their first day of school appears to have faded. The president's "work hard and stay in school" bromides were unexceptional, nor was there ever much reason to expect otherwise.

There was that slight cognitive dissonance between Mr. Obama's autobiographical account of his own struggles and his insistence that America still needs to be "more fair."

But the main concern of the right, that the Sept. 8 enterprise was intended to launch some kind of cult of personality -- while admittedly fed by a set of ham-handed "supplemental materials" ginned up by the Department of Education -- seems to have come to nought.

Give Mr. Obama credit for much of what he said, and continues to say, about educational reform. In rhetorical defiance of that major Democratic Party constituency, America's unionized schoolteachers, Mr. Obama deserves credit for talking a good game on merit pay, charter schools, and breaking down the "tenure" barrier that bars removal of ineffective educators.

Unfortunately, in a now familiar pattern, Mr. Obama does not fare as well when one examines his actual actions, in contrast to his rhetoric.

If Mr. Obama favors innovation designed to increase competition and the range of educational options, particularly for underprivileged kids, why on earth did he stand silent on the sidelines last winter as senators from his own party took the fledgling, highly celebrated Washington, D.C., voucher program out behind the barn and shot it?

Nevada's own Republican Sen. John Ensign was the whistle-blower, pointing out last March's $410 billion omnibus spending bill would "effectively kill" the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which allowed qualified low-income families to claim up to $7,500 per student toward a private education of their choice. About 1,700 students were enrolled at the time; many have since had to return to the dismal and far more costly D.C. public schools.

Sen. Ensign proposed an amendment to strike language in the bill that restricted voucher funding. His amendment would have specifically reinstated the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program for the 2009-10 school year. But Sen. Ensign's amendment went down in flames in a partisan, 58-39 vote -- while Mr. Obama, the supposed champion of educational choice, stood silent.

"It's a little unusual to end a program before you even have the information to evaluate the program," said Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman of the Archdiocese of Washington.

Democrats, including Mr. Obama's former cohort, Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, parroted the teacher union talking point that vouchers take federal funds from the public schools, hastening their "destruction" -- though in fact each departing voucher student leaves almost as much money behind as he or she takes away.

Sen. Durbin contended safety, teacher's degrees and standardized tests were not held to public school levels at the private schools which admitted the voucher students -- leaving open such questions as why 1,700 parents then preferred the private schools, and why their graduates move on to college at better rates.

Sen. Ensign further asked Sen. Durbin, if he thought private schools were worse, why Sen. Durbin continues to choose a private school education for his own children.

"Parents are lined up to give their children a better future through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship," said Sen. Ensign. "And why not? It's a better education in a safe environment. For policymakers, it should have been just as simple because it's also less expensive."

The D.C. public schools receive and spend about $14,000 per student -- almost twice what the voucher recipients received.

Nor did the usual excuse -- that vouchers benefit elite, well-educated white parents, allowing them to "siphon" away their children, thus leaving the public schools as educational backwaters with mostly minority populations -- apply. Washington, D.C., public schools are mostly poor and black; the highly appreciative beneficiaries of the short-lived voucher program were also mostly poor and black.

If President Obama wanted to help those children, why did he stand by as they were used as sacrificial pawns, their hopes dashed by hypocritical senators out to curry favor with a powerful union monopoly?