This story sure didn’t get a lot of play in the mainstream media:
School-voucher proponents confronted police Tuesday morning outside the U.S. Department of Education, where the protesters demanded that federal officials restore scholarships taken away from 216 D.C. students.
About 20 Federal Protective Services officers stood in front of the Maryland Avenue Southwest entrance, blocking six demonstrators, who formed a human chain, from entering the building. As the protesters inched closer to the doorway, officers called for backup and obstructed their path.
A crowd of about 30 demonstrators chanted, “Spare the change, return our hope.” The group stood on the building’s steps, cheering on those who linked arms and stood face to face with authorities. Former D.C. Council member Kevin P. Chavous, who organized the event, and Virginia Walden Ford, executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, were among those risking arrest.
[. . .]
“You may not lock us up, but we’ll be back,” Mr. Chavous said. “We will make sure that we do everything in our power to give our children the education they deserve. I am disgusted by the fact that they can go to great lengths to stop or muzzle the voice of freedom.
“It is fundamentally wrong for this administration not to listen to the voices of citizens in this city.”
The protest against President Obama’s refusal to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program came the same day that Mr. Obama addressed the nation’s classrooms in a televised speech about the importance of taking personal responsibility for one’s education.
There is, of course, legislation with bipartisan sponsorship to restore the funding. In late July, Sens. Joe Lieberman, Susan Collins, Diane Feinstein, George Voinovich, Robert Byrd, and John Ensign introduced the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act, which would provide reauthorization for the program for five years. So it seems that the only thing standing in the way of giving D.C. parents what they want—funding for a successful program for kids trapped in one of the worst school districts in the country—is the Obama administration. And the teachers’ union, of course.
