The Education Gadfly: Norton v. Parents

 A well-deserved smack to Eleanor Holmes Norton for trying to kill the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.

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Norton v. parents

Gadfly has heretofore expressed no opinion about the District of Columbia's lack of representation in Congress. But the latest crusade of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives, makes one think that perhaps D.C. shouldn't have a vote. Norton is trying to kill the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, which turns federal dollars into private school scholarships for 2,000 of the District's neediest students. Her stance is, at minimum, odd, because parents whose children have received scholarships like the program.  So who is Norton representing? Evidently not her D.C. constituents. She recently said that the program ''was experimental, it was never meant to be permanent.'' But Deborah Green, whose daughter Tanisha is thriving in her new private school, disagrees. Green said, ''We're going to have a battle. I'm ready to do that because they need to keep the program going. Without it, the students don't have a choice, and I don't think that's fair.'' It's not fair. Whether or not you think Norton should win a vote in Congress, here's hoping she loses this particular fight and that the parents prevail.