House Committee on Education and Labor
U.S. House of Representatives

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In an effort to strengthen educational opportunities for children in the nation’s capital, top Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives today called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to support the education funding proposals submitted by the Mayor and the City Council for the District of Columbia. Education advocates were dismayed last week to learn that a small number of reform opponents are seeking to bring the groundbreaking D.C. Opportunity Scholarship to an end, leading top Republicans to urge Democratic leaders in the House to reaffirm their support for this bipartisan initiative to help disadvantaged children escape underperforming schools.

“Education reform in the nation’s capital has been a uniquely nonpartisan pursuit, with leaders from both sides of the aisle setting aside their differences to pursue commonsense reforms that will strengthen public schools, expand the reach of public alternatives like charter schools, and provide an escape valve to those children trapped in underperforming schools through the pioneering D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program,” said the House Education and Labor Committee’s Senior Republican, Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, who signed the letter to Speaker Pelosi.  “Now is exactly the wrong time to allow partisan special interest groups to win out over the interests of disadvantaged children.”

McKeon joined House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Senior Republican Tom Davis (R-VA) in sending today’s letter to Speaker Pelosi in support of the education budget sought by District leaders.

The education package proposed by the Mayor and City Council includes funds that would go to the public school system for initiatives like expanding teacher pay; to programs that help replicate high-performing charter schools; and to the hugely popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.  As D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty recently stated in a letter to Congress, this education package “will spur improved instruction and services, directly benefiting students in the classroom.”

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program – whose funds are allocated over and above the District’s education budget, ensuring funds are not drained from public school programs – provides $7,500 scholarships to more than 1,900 low-income children enrolled in some of the nation’s most troubled schools.  These scholarships allow parents to enroll their children in the private school of their choice, a freedom enjoyed by more affluent families but otherwise denied to disadvantaged students in the program.  Although experts agree that it will take time for potentially significant achievement gains to be demonstrated, the program has proven immensely popular with D.C. children and families.  Parents of scholarship recipients have reported high satisfaction levels, and demand for the scholarships continually outpaces the supply.

Echoing these findings of program success, the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Educational Sciences today released its “Evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program: Impacts After Two Years,” a report that reaffirms the early successes of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program including high levels of parental satisfaction and early signs of academic gains among scholarship recipients.

“Today’s report found that just two years after families were given the chance to transfer from some of the most troubled schools in the nation, disadvantaged children are already starting to show achievement gains, while parents are more satisfied with their children’s schools and school safety,” said McKeon.  “This record of success is remarkable in such a short timeframe, and I only expect outcomes to improve as this program takes hold and children begin to flourish in their new educational environments.”

Despite the program’s early record of success and its history of strong bipartisan support, it was reported last week that some reform opponents are developing a plan to defund and dismantle the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, effectively stripping children and families of the only chance they have to escape underperforming schools.  The average family income for scholarship recipients is just $22,700 per year, and fully 86 percent of enrolled students would be forced to return to schools designated as needing improvement if the program were eliminated and their scholarships taken away.

“The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has never been debased by partisan bickering, and we implore you not to allow the program to be sacrificed to special interests now,” wrote Boehner, Blunt, Davis, and McKeon.  “With the backing of Mayor Fenty, two former Mayors, a number of men and women on the City Council, prominent businessmen and women in the District, and thousands of students and parents who support continuing and expanding the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, we hope that you will join us in continue to support this valuable program.”

The letter to Speaker Pelosi is available for download on the Education and Labor Committee Republican website.

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