Expelling Kids in D.C.

What became of the Obama promise of transparency? Last week, the Obama administration belatedly issued a report from its own Department of Education.

This official report shows that students who qualify for the federally funded D.C. Opportunity Scholarships are almost one half year ahead of their public school peers in reading, based on standardizes testing. Nearly 1,700 poor kids are going to be expelled from the private schools their parents chose for them using these scholarships. (Two of these scholarship kids currently go to Sidwell Friends School, the elite private academy the Obamas chose for their own daughters.)

So far, Congress has gone along with Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) drive to kill the highly successful voucher program. Even though Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he favors the D.C. scholarships—as do Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee—the Obama administration has political debts to pay to the teacher union bosses. Those union bosses hate the idea of parents choosing schools for their children.

Tony Perkins heads the Family Research Council. This article is excerpted from the Washington Update that he compiles for the FRC.