The Teachers' Unions that Stole Christmas

As Christmas grows closer, the hopes of thousands of D.C. schoolchildren and their families are appearing dimmer and dimmer, and no one is celebrating more than the teachers' unions.

Congress's failure to reauthorize the federally-funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), which has provided more than 3,300 schoolchildren scholarships to attend private schools of their choice in the District of Columbia, has proven fatal. The program could end even earlier than expected.

Last week the Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF), the nonprofit organization that administers the program, announced that Congress's failure to act and the Obama administration's unwillingness to let new students participate, means that the WSF will be forced to end its oversight of the program this summer, when the school year ends.

"[E]xisting children and families in the OSP do not know whether they will have access to an Opportunity Scholarship next year, and children and families not now in the program do not know whether they will have the opportunity to participate next year," the organization's board of directors and president wrote in a December 3 letter to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "This makes it virtually impossible for children, families, schools, and WSF to prepare for the time-intensive application and renewal processes so critical to the OSP's sound administration for the 2010-2011 school year. Moreover, it denies these families any educational choice because more often than not, charters are not an option."

Board members predict that the likely fallout will be private school closures that will force many scholarship recipients and other students back into the city's troubled public schools next fall, "requiring the District to absorb the additional fiscal costs of educating both groups of students."

"Effectively, Congress's failure to act to reauthorize this program will send well over 1,000 children to failing and, too often, unsafe schools," the letter states. "That result would, in our view, constitute a moral failing of the highest order on all of our parts."

With less than a month left before Congress adjourns for its holiday recess, supporters of the program had hoped that their latest ad campaign and lobby effort would convince the Obama administration and key Congressmen like Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.), that the voucher program needs to continue.

"This is the best opportunity kids can have," said Patricia William, whose 12-year-old son Fransoir has used a scholarship to attend a private school in the District since the program's inception in 2004. "Congress has the power to make it happen."

Originally from El Salvador, William became a U.S. citizen in 1996. She said an opportunity scholarship has given her and Fransoir what she hoped to find in America. "This country is about options and education, so give us options as parents," she said. "Don't take away our right to help our kids, especially when this program is working."

But in a November 23 commentary piece for the Washington Post, Rep. Serrano, who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees the embattled program's funding, reiterated his opposition to letting any more low-income D.C. students benefit from the expiring program. "This is as far as I can go," said Serrano. "I do not support an expansion to include children not currently in the program."

This slammed the door on efforts to resuscitate the program in the House, and the Senate does not appear to have the votes it needs to reauthorize the program.

"People are outraged," said Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice. "It is morally wrong to relegate these children to failing schools."

Archdiocese of Washington spokesperson Kathy Dempsey said seven participating Archdiocese schools recently held meetings with parents to discuss what it would mean if the program is not reauthorized soon.

"It's getting down to the wire and our schools and families need to know what their options are," said Dempsey.

Dempsey added that the District could also lose millions of dollars in desperately-needed funding if the program is not renewed, since the program's implementation was conditioned upon the city's public and charter schools also receiving more money.

"The city could lose $54 million in federal education funding if the program ends, plus $25 million if up to 1,700 [scholarship] children go back to D.C. public schools," said Dempsey. If private schools close, something many believe is likely for a few schools that currently serve a high number of voucher students, even more children will be affected.

One group that won't be bemoaning the voucher programs' end is the teachers' unions. This spring National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel bluntly reminded Senators that "opposition to vouchers is a top priority for NEA," and warned them that the NEA would be paying keen attention to how they vote on vouchers.

"The National Education Association strongly opposes any extension of the District of Columbia private school voucher ('DC Opportunity Scholarship') program," Van Roekel wrote in a March 5, 2009 letter. "We expect that Members of Congress who support public education, and whom we have supported, will stand firm against any proposal to extend the pilot program. Actions associated with these issues WILL be included in the NEA Legislative Report Card for the 111th Congress."

The Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics recently released data showing that the NEA topped the chart as the number one national donor during the 2007-08 election cycle, shelling out $57.6 million in combined federal and state contributions. The American Federation of Teachers was number 25, with more than $13 million in contributions.

Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency put this in perspective, writing that the NEA's and AFT's 2007-08 contributions meant that "America's two teachers' unions outspent AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, General Electric, Chevron, Pfizer, Morgan Stanley, Lockheed Martin, FedEx, Boeing, Merrill Lynch, Exxon Mobil, Lehman Brothers, and the Walt Disney Corporation, combined."

The Obama administration--already having trouble explaining why it is doing away with a program its own Department of Education reported has advanced participating children's reading achievement by more than three months--will now have another opportunity to explain to low-income D.C. parents and students why it and the Democrat-led Congress has decided to grant the teachers' unions' wish instead of theirs.

Last February President Obama claimed in a weekly radio address that he would fight special interests. "The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long," Obama said. "But I don't. I work for the American people."

D.C. students and parents like William and her son will no doubt see things differently.

Sheryl Henderson Blunt is a Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellow.