John Kline (R., Minn.), the incoming chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, tells Mr. Feith that Congress “can make sure federal policy does not stand in [the] way” of states seeking to replicate California’s path-breaking “parent trigger” law. Rep. Kline could actually do quite a bit more than that. Among the possibilities afforded is a chance to resurrect Washington’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, which the Obama administration killed last year and a bipartisan group of lawmakers failed to revive. It was the first federally funded K-12 school-voucher program in the U.S. and gave students from low-income families a chance to escape D.C.’s failing public schools. Congress could pass legislation that gives parents of children in D.C. schools the power to demand their failing schools be closed and their children allowed to attend higher-performing public schools; be converted into charter schools; or be granted automatic admission to a reconstituted opportunity-scholarship program, allowing them to choose public or private schools for their children.
Ben Boychuk
Managing Editor
School Reform News
The Heartland Institute
Chicago
Ben Boychuk ([email protected]) is a policy advisor for school reform at The Heartland Institute and a former managing editor of School Reform News.
