Op-Ed: Will Congress serve D.C. children?

Any day now, the District’s overseers, members of the Congress, will decide whether to continue funding the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. That program, which was put in place in 2003, provides $12 million annually in federal dollars to enable approximately 1,900 D.C. children to attend private school. Each child receives a federal voucher for up to $7,500. that can be used to pay tuition and fees at participating private schools in the District. This program is part of the three-sector initiative included in the original federal appropriation signed by President Bush in 2003. The other two sectors include $13 million in federal dollars dedicated to support D.C. public charter schools and $13 million allocated for D.C. Public Schools. These are all new dollars that do not impact the D.C. budget.

At present, Congress is debating whether to continue the funding for the program. Since this is a presidential election year, congressional Democrats want to be sure to validate their party bona fides. As such, many Democrats on the Hill see the D.C. scholarship program as an easy target to kill, all in the name of saving public education. Well, with all the politics swirling around this issue, I thought it was important to share the most important perspective in this whole debate: that of the children and families involved who benefit from the program.

A study released by Georgetown University in 2007 demonstrated that scholarship parents are significantly more satisfied in all areas, including safety, class size, academic quality, discipline and relationships with teachers. Parents are more involved in their children’s education and are becoming better education consumers.

But let’s not focus on studies. Let’s focus on Tiffany Dunston. Tiffany was one of the first students to benefit from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. During the first year of the program, Tiffany entered Archbishop Carroll, a highly regarded Catholic high school in Northeast D.C. Tiffany told me that the scholarship allowed her to “reach her full potential.” Apparently, Tiffany did reach her full potential at Carroll. She graduated this spring as the class valedictorian and will be attending Syracuse University in the fall.

When I asked Tiffany what she would say to members of Congress who may end the program, she said that such a move would be “tragic.” Tiffany told me that she just wasn’t learning at her previous school. But Tiffany was determined. As she emphasized, her scholarship allowed her to fulfill the dream of her cousin, who had planned to go to college on a basketball scholarship before being shot and killed at age 17.

Tiffany said she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to get rid of the scholarships. It “just wouldn’t be fair if other students didn’t get the chance to prove themselves as I did,” she said. Tiffany is right. It wouldn’t be fair if the program ended. But that decision is not Tiffany’s to make.

Maybe the answer lies in the words of Cheryl Hall. Mrs. Hall has two children in the Opportunity Scholarship program. She told me that both of her children have benefited enormously from their attendance at the Ambassador Baptist Church Christian School, a participating school in the D.C. program. Mrs. Hall’s daughter Kayla, a rising sixth-grader, and her son Winston, a rising second-grader, are in an educational environment that meets their needs and both are thriving.

Mrs. Hall supports public schools and the reform efforts of Mayor Adrian Fenty and Chancellor Michelle Rhee. That being said, Mrs. Hall strongly believes that while Mr. Fenty and Mrs. Rhee are doing all they can to change the system, she has found the school that works for her kids and is not going back: “I support the mayor and hope his efforts make a difference, but I am so, so thankful that I had the right option for my kids. I just couldn’t lose them to a bad system. My kids are staying where they are.”

Members of Congress: It really does make sense to listen to the real-life experiences of the children and families in the program rather than the political know-it-alls. After all, who do we really serve?

Kevin P. Chavous, a former member of the D.C. Council, is a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and a Distinguished Fellow with the Center for Education Reform. He also is the author of “Serving Our Children - Charter Schools and the Reform of American Public Education.”