Save D.C. voucher program

If ranking near the top of the nation's per-student expenditures guaranteed successful schools, the public education system in Washington, D.C., would be thriving. If the education establishment didn't have an iron grip on Congress, students in that city would be assured that a promising voucher program would continue.

But high spending hasn't delivered high test scores in Washington, where public schools again produced dismal national rankings in 2007 — last in math and next to last in reading among all U.S. urban public-school systems. Further, the education lobby's diehard resistance to using public money in private schools now threatens to deprive families in our nation's capital of a positive educational option. As The Washington Post recently reported, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's non-voting Democratic delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives, has warned that the "Opportunity Scholarships" pilot program, which costs $18 million annually, faces likely termination by Congress when its initial five-year funding expires next year. The House Appropriations Committee is soon expected to recommend not reauthorizing it.

The failure to extend the program would eliminate the $7,500 scholarships now paying part or all of private-school tuitions for nearly 2,000 Washington children who otherwise would be stuck in a failing public-school system spending at least $13,000 per student. The Cato Institute reports that the actual total cost is more than $24,000 when all funding is taken into account. While Ms. Norton conceded that the affected students "are truly the innocent victims here," she added, "I can tell you that the Democratic Congress is not about to extend this program."

Yet plenty of Democrats outside of Congress, including former Washington Mayors Anthony Williams and Marion Barry, still enthusiastically support it. So do more than 90 percent of the families using it, according to research by Georgetown University.

Expanding opportunities for 2,000 students is a limited step. While the U.S. Department of the Education recently reported that the program's "achievement trends are moving in the right direction," it's too early to fully determine its lasting effects.

But it's not too early to fully recognize the dismal results the status quo has been producing in Washington's high-cost public schools for decades. The indisputable failure of that system demands more school choice and innovation — and a fair chance for this voucher plan to succeed.