Program on Vouchers Draws Minority Support

Wow!  Powerful stuff here!  The parental response to the DC voucher program isn't surprising at all (see the video clips above -- those aren't actors!).  Parents know it when their kids are trapped in ghastly schools and once they get a taste of freedom, it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.

Amie is one of about 1,700 low-income, mostly minority students in Washington who at taxpayer expense are attending 58 private and parochial schools through the nation's first federal voucher program, now in its second year.

Last year, parents appeared lukewarm toward the program, which was put in place by Congressional Republicans as a five-year pilot program, But this year, it is attracting more participation, illustrating how school-choice programs are winning over minority parents, traditionally a Democratic constituency.

It's one of the cruelest, most shocking ironies I can think of: the people who claim to care most about those parents are precisely the ones fighting hardest to deny those parents and their children the right to find a better school -- a right that I'm sure virtually all of them have!

------------------------------------------

Program on Vouchers Draws Minority Support

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Published: April 6, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/education/06voucher.html?ei=5088&en=330ce4b36ee6df69&ex=1301976000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, April 5 — As a student at Shaw Junior High School here, Amie Fuwa strained to shut out the distractions of friends cutting up. She struggled through math, and used photocopies or the library when textbooks were scarce.

Now Amie, 14, a child of immigrants from Nigeria and the Dominican Republic, attends Archbishop Carroll High School, a Catholic school near a verdant hill of churches nicknamed the Little Vatican. When algebra confounds Amie, her teacher stays with her after school to help, and a mentor keeps her on course.

"It's a lot of people behind my back now," Amie said.

Before, she said, she "felt like it didn't really matter to different people I know, like my teachers, if I failed."

Amie is one of about 1,700 low-income, mostly minority students in Washington who at taxpayer expense are attending 58 private and parochial schools through the nation's first federal voucher program, now in its second year...