FreedomWorks

Liberals love the idea of the federal government spending lots of money on public education. The more money the better, and for the most part liberals have succeeded in getting more federal money for education. Since 1980, federal funding for education has grown an astounding 228 percent – a good track record if your goal is to maximize federal spending. The problem is, liberals don’t care if the spending actually goes towards better educating children. More education spending has not resulted in higher test scores.

Nowhere is this truer than in the public school system in the District of Columbia, arguably the worst public schools in the country. The Washington, DC public school system is failing real children, whose shot at the American Dream are threatened by the incompetence of the schools. At Anacostia Senior High School, 69 percent of the students read at a “below basic” level. 91 percent of the students’ math skills are below basic. At Cardozo Senior High, 64 percent read at a below basic level and 90 percent are below basic in Math. At Dunbar the numbers are 61 percent below basic for reading and 92 percent for math. These sad numbers repeat themselves at almost every public high school in the District of Columbia. In fact, at only one public high school in the District can the majority of the students read at above the “below basic” level. If this is not a school system that is failing, than what is the meaning of failure?

Take a guess what the liberals’ solution is to this human tragedy? That’s right, they want more money for the District public schools. Of course, Washington, D.C. already spends $9,650 per pupil a year, which is more than $3,000 above the national average. If spending were the issue, DC would have a top-notch education system.

For many years conservatives have worked hard to advance a different vision for education. It centers on my most important “Armey Axiom” – which is that Freedom Works. If parents and children in the District of Columbia are trapped in an expensive yet failing school system, the solution is simple. Give the parents the freedom to send their children to a school that works – public, private or parochial. If the parent, who loves their child more than anyone else on Earth, is given the choice, what are they going to chose? Will the parent want their child in a school that is failing or a school where real learning takes place? The choice is obvious, which is why “Freedom Works.”

Next week the House of Representatives is expected to consider the District of Columbia Parental Choice Incentive Act of 2003 H.R. 2556) which recently passed the House Committee on Government Reform. Under the bill, a scholarship of up to $7500 is provided for children to attend a private school of their parent’s choice. This legislation, which is also included as part of the larger appropriations bill for the District of Columbia, represents a real advancement for freedom. The vision of freedom in education can come to the worst public schools that also happen to be in the highly watched nation’s capitol. Once this program takes hold and parents across the country can see how freedom worked to provide a good education to D.C. kids – and at the same time forced the existing public schools to improve by exposing the schools to competition – then freedom will spread quickly in school district after school district.

President Bush supports bringing freedom and choice to D.C. parents and children. He included the idea as part of his overall budget and he has held rallies in support of D.C. school choice. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams now supports parental choice because he said he, "got up one morning and decided there are a lot of kids getting a crappy education and we could do better." Even the editorial board of the Washington Post supports school choice for the District of Columbia. Next week, the House of Representatives will demonstrate its support by passing the legislation.

Yet, some in the Senate still hold out. Senator Ted Kennedy threatened to stall the advance of freedom in the Senate and made the old liberal claim “"scarce public funds should be used to pay for public schools, not to pay for a small number of students to attend private schools." For the liberals it is still about the money, not freedom. But for the first time we have a real chance to defeat the liberal status quo. A showdown is coming in the Senate either next week or the week after. We need to rally support and send messages directly into Senate offices with the simple message – “Let Freedom Work.”