A Cruel School Move

Editorial - March 9th, 2009 - Chicago Tribune

We wrote last week about Democratic efforts to strip 1,900 low-income Washington children of $7,500 "opportunity scholarships" to attend private schools.

It's an experiment in school vouchers, an experiment with little potential downside. But it's an experiment that was launched in 2004 by a Republican-controlled Congress. Today it's on the verge of extinction because the Democratic-controlled Congress wants to do the bidding of public-school teachers unions.

I wonder how Darrell Allison, the black President of Parents for Educational Freedom feels about the President he backed killing this program he thinks will help minority children? It is ironic that the only time you can get blacks to stop smearing Republicans with the charge of racism is when they suspend the insults for just a moment to let us vote for a good education plan for their children. Then they return to their hate filled mantra of ridicule and vitriol. Of course they will never really hold Democrats to account for the poor schools since the Education Unions control the Democrat Party.

Nor will they ever explain why Republicans vote in favor of voucher programs that help minorities if they really were racists. The argument that we support these programs because we care about the children getting a good education is dismissed with sneers, though there is no other rational explanation.

I think I am tired of the insults. Since vouchers primarily help the children of people who vote Democrat, I just stopped supporting them. You watch. The next thing that will happen is someone will call me a racist. The only problem is, they already do. So no big deal.