[Guest post by Patrick B. McGuigan]
U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, is part of a
bipartisan group chiding the Obama Administration for trying to kill a school
choice program benefiting children in the nation’s capital.
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| Sen. James Lankford |
Lankford has long supported choice. In an interview with
this reporter, he said, “Congress has direct oversight over the District of
Columbia. So as a Member of Congress, I can advocate for school choice in the
area where I have direct impact.” Lankford, in his first term in the Senate
after four highly effective years in the U.S. House, is chairman of the
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs
and Federal Management—with jurisdiction over the District of Columbia.
“When it comes to our children,” Lankford believes, “the
American people are eager to pursue policies that help kids thrive. Education
is about kids, not political parties. School choice allows parents to get kids
out of the small number of failing schools.”
A conservative statesman, Sen. Lankford seemed reluctant to
assail his Republican friends at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City. Even
though school choice is
popular
among Oklahoma voters, the GOP-controlled legislature failed this year to pass
Education Savings Account legislation authored by state Sen. Clark Jolley,
R-Edmond, and state Rep. Jason Nelson, R-Oklahoma City. “Parents and local
elected officials should create and manage education policy,” Lankford said, “not
Washington.”
Well, yes. I am a commentator and a journalist, so let me
register some reflections and criticisms about the latest Republican failure to
defend and advance
the stated Republican policy position.
Jolley's Senate Bill 609 would allow students to receive
partial value for tax-financed education resources, in support of schooling at
a place of parental (or guardian) choice. The idea, as with all school choice
programs, is to have resources follow children, rather than institutions or
bureaucracies.
After pulling his measure from the 2015 legislative
calendar, Jolley said “education savings accounts would enable more Oklahoma
parents to make that choice for their child by allowing them to use part of his
or her state education funding to pursue the schooling that best suits a
student's needs.
“Public schools would actually see
an
increase in per-pupil revenue as a result of this plan. Other states
already offer this option for education, and I am convinced this would enhance
our efforts to improve education levels in our state.”
To be sure, Jolley’s bill can be revisited during the 2016
legislative session. Still, the result is notable. For the second year in a
row, school choice legislation was pulled from the calendar in a
Republican-controlled Legislature.
Meanwhile, back in the nation’s capital, Sens. Ron Johnson,
R-Wisconsin, Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and Tim Scott, R-South Carolina,
joined Lankford in pushing to retain the Opportunity Scholarship Program. In a
missive to President Obama, the quartet detailed shared concerns over his
decision. Their joint letter read:
We were disappointed to learn
your budget proposal cut funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program
and terminated future funding for this life-changing program.
Public schools in the District
of Columbia are some of the worst in the nation. The high school four-year
graduation rate in the district is only 59 percent. Only half of the district’s
public school children are proficient in reading. This track record is in spite
of spending almost $30,000 per pupil.
The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship
Program provides scholarships for children of low-income households in the
district to attend schools that their families otherwise could never possibly
afford. Because the enrollment wait list for D.C. Public Charter Schools totals
more than 22,000 applicants, disadvantaged Washington students have limited
options in the district’s public schools. For many Washington students, the D.C.
Opportunity Scholarship Program is the only hope for an opportunity to lift
themselves out of poverty.
The average household income for
students receiving scholarships under the program is below $21,000—in a city
with some of the highest costs of living in the nation. Two-thirds of these
children come from families that receive food stamps and/or aid from the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Ninety-seven percent of the
children who benefit from this program are African American, Hispanic and/or
Latino.
Despite the socioeconomic
challenges facing these students, 90 percent of students who earn scholarships
through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program graduate from high school, and
almost all of those students go on to attend college. The program’s success and
popularity among Washington families is reflected in the more than 3,600
applications received for the 2014-2015 school year. Simply stated, this
program works.
We therefore urge you to support
the full, continuous funding of a program that is proven to transform the lives
of thousands of Washington children, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
The four senators together reflect the diversity of support
for school choice in modern America.
Put one way, the group includes two while males (Lankford
and Johnson), a black male (Scott), and a female Democrat (Feinstein).
Put another way, the group includes a Jew (Feinstein), a Southern Baptist (Lankford), a Lutheran (Johnson), and an Evangelical (Scott).
Put still another way, these four represent the future, a bipartisan answer to what many have called the most important civil rights issue of the 21st century—education for minorities, and for us all.
Which side of the argument over school choice will Oklahoma Republicans choose? An inclusive future, or a monopoly-driven past?
[Patrick McGuigan (M.A. in history, Oklahoma State University) is editor of CapitolBeatOK, publisher of The City Sentinel
, and a history teacher at Justice Alma Wilson Seeworth Academy, a public charter alternative school in Oklahoma City. On April 30 he will be inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.
]
