The Obama administration and Democrats are trying to sneak this by, hoping no one notices:

Omnibus Spending Bill Eliminates Opportunity: As it stands now, the House omnibus bill will eliminate the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP). Since the program’s inception in 2004, the DCOSP has given thousands of low-income students in the District of Columbia access to a better education.

• For Children in Need: About 1,700 children currently attend private school using opportunity scholarships. The average household income of a DCOSP family is $23,000.
• Safe and Effective Learning Environments: DCOSP has yielded positive results for its participants. Studies show higher parent satisfaction with their child’s school safety and learning environment, and test scores are moving in the right direction as students regain ground lost in their previous under-performing schools.
• Traded in for Violence and Low-Performance: Eliminating DCOSP would take students who are flourishing in a safe and effective learning environment and send them back into a public school system that ranks 51st nationally in student achievement, where barely half of all students graduate high school, and where one in every eight students reports being assaulted or injured with a deadly weapon.
• Yet Costs Less: DCOSP costs less per student than traditional federal programs and provides a better learning experience. The $13 million cost of DCOSP is a drop in the bucket compared to the $68 billon in the federal budget for the Department of Education. The stimulus bill alone added $140 billion over two years to the Department of Education, including $15 billion for Pell grants, which support school choice for upper-income college students.
• Something All Should Agree On: Nationally, school choice policies like the DCOSP have attracted bipartisan support. Fourteen states in total offer students a choice in education, including Louisiana, where a voucher bill sponsored by Democrats was signed into law in 2008. State legislative chambers controlled by Democrats in Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island have approved school choice bills in recent years.

http://www.voicesofschoolchoice.org/

So, why would Dems seek to end such a successful program and take away the choice of these children to attend the same school that Obama's kids attend? One reason: teacher's unions. It's one of their big voter bases and it's promises they've made. Teachers Unions see this as a threat to the public school system, which is their livilihood. Forget that they've failed these kids over and over again in places like Washington D.C.---which has the absolute worst school system......Obama must pay back his voters no matter what the cost. Dem leaders have supported this for other places....so why NOT Washington D.C??????

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"Look, a rule of thumb here is whenever you find yourself on the side of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and the Castro twins you ought to re-examine your assumptions.” Charles Krauthammer, speaking of Pres. Obama

Well,of course the Obamite Dems want to end this great program. It makes the UNION CONTROLLED Government Youth Indoctrination Centers look bad,and Lord knows, OBAMA OWES THE UNIONS, BIG TIME.

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" That government governs best, which governs least." - Thomas Jefferson...maybe.

Yep! As Biden told the Unions last week.....ya gotta dance with the one who brung ya...and it's time to dance. Meaning it's payback time!!!

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"Look, a rule of thumb here is whenever you find yourself on the side of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and the Castro twins you ought to re-examine your assumptions.” Charles Krauthammer, speaking of Pres. Obama

Meanwhile, Obama's children are safe and sound in the private education system.

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"The plans differ; the planners are all alike..."
- Frédéric Bastiat

There are serious problems with voucher programs. Public schools are paid for via taxes...so why would public monies be going to private schools? Why wouldnt they take the money they use on vouchers and pay to private schools and use that money to improve the public schools instead...the place the public money is intended to go to in the first place?

Vouchers is yet another way to make the public pay into the pockets of private interests that are sopposed to be supported via private money and not public money. This of course then takes money away from the public schools to support private ventures and private education.

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"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people
can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

Here's what bugs me about the Democrat hypocrisy.

A woman has the right to choose whether to abort or not, but she doesn't have the right to put their kid in a safe school where they can get a good education and won't be assaulted with weapons. She gets to choose the baby's life up until it is actually born, then the government steps in and takes over.

Since the federal government became involved in funding education the overall achievement of students has declined. The federal government has no business funding education at all and it currently costs the school systems 10% of their budget to comply with federal mandates but the federal government only provides 7% of school budgets - federal funding for schools is a net loss for the schools.

Get the federal government out of funding education. Education is paid for with property taxes and using income taxes is a form of double taxation for the same thing.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
Forum Rules and Guidelines: http://www.politicalforum.com/curren...uncements.html

Thats not a problem you fix by handing tax money to private interests.

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"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people
can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

How are the schools improved by getting less funding? How does this make vouchers a good idea?

I am assuming you want to restrict funding to state funding only or are you advocating no tax supported public school system at all and those who cant afford an education go without?

__________________
"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people
can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

Funding for education is a matter for the States and the People (10th Amendment).

I support private scholarships for advanced education. These are overwhelmigly awarded based upon the merit of the student.

__________________
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
Forum Rules and Guidelines: http://www.politicalforum.com/curren...uncements.html