Obama Proposes Continuing DC Voucher Program For Current Students.

The Washington Post (5/7, Turque, Murray) reports that "President Obama will propose setting aside enough money for all 1,716 students in the District's voucher program to continue receiving grants for private school tuition until they graduate from high school, but he would allow no new students to join the program, administration officials said yesterday." According to the White House, "moving the children back to public schools amounted to an unnecessary disruption." While some voucher program supporters hailed the President's proposal, "others called the proposal a weak attempt to placate school choice advocates."

WPost Calls Proposal "An Admirable Commitment." In a separate article, the Washington Post (5/7) editorializes that Obama's proposal to continue the voucher program is "an admirable commitment" because the youngest students in the program are pre-kindergartners. Furthermore, "Obama had never embraced vouchers, so it bespeaks a pragmatic open-mindedness that he would put aside that philosophical opposition in deference to the interests of these children." Despite the program's detractors, the Post concludes, "We hope Mr. Obama will fight for the compromise he has embraced."

Any chance Obama gets to buy votes with your money, he will take it!

that his daughters' classmates were going to have to go to public school. I doubt there was any more behind his decision than that.

O will let his daughters' classmates stay in Sidewell, with the help of vouchers, but no new kids will get to use the voucher system. They'll have to stay in the violence-infested, poorly performing DC public schools.

O's trying to have it both ways: appease those already using the voucher system and placate the powerful teachers union. Instead of taking a stand and doing what's right, he again goes for the politically expedient choice, backing the NEA.