The rally of over 1,300 kids and their parents in defense of the D.C. school voucher plan illustrated the emotional power of the issue. Looking over the faces of the participants — and recognizing the common cause they share with conservative opponents of the decision to dump the program — you have to wonder: what was the Obama team thinking? I suspect they thought no one would notice or make a fuss.

So now the president has relented and will allow the current voucher participants to continue in the program. But why terminate an effective program that poor, inner city families like? These families have younger siblings and friends with children who wish to participate. So there will be plenty of people for the next march, and the one after that. This issue isn’t going away. And now that it has visibility, other inner city families may wonder why their school district doesn’t offer such a plan.

If the sight of neatly attired inner city kids with homemade signs isn’t bad enough, consider the policy. Something is seriously wrong when the White House, the Education Secretary, and Congress are willing to end an effective program in the barren wasteland of D.C. education and throw poor, inner city families overboard just to avoid incurring the wrath of the teachers’ union. D.C. Mayor Fenty knows which side he is on. How long before the president figures out which side he should be on? One would think that as a former community organizer he’d be moved by such a passionate protest against injustice in his own community.