Jim DeMint: Save Vouchers or D.C. Kids Will All Join Gangs!
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)
UPDATE: Wesley Denton, a spokesperson for Sen. DeMint, has responded by email:
"The Washington Times misreported Senator DeMint’s comments, they were not his opinion, he was in fact quoting a D.C. mother who had spoken to him this week of her concern for her child joining a gang," Denton wrote.
The email also links to a New York Post account of the press conference, which gives the quote as follows: "Parents tell us . . . if they are sending their kids off to public schools, the chances are very good that they are going to end up in a gang rather than graduating high school."
Unless Sen. DeMint's office is claiming that he actually meant to say he disagrees with that statement, doesn't seem to us like this clarification changes the meaning of what he said very much.
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We can't decide whether to laugh or hold our heads and groan. The Washington Times reports something we hadn't heard about from yesterday's GOP school voucher press conference. They got the following quote from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.): "If you send a kid to [public] school in D.C., chances are that they will end up in a gang rather than graduating."
For the record, DCPS has about a 70 percent graduation rate, which is on par with the national average.
DeMint was arguing in favor of preserving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships program, an experimental voucher program in the District which is in danger of being killed by language in a Democrat-authored spending bill. (The bill was blocked by Senate Republicans last night, but will likely proceed next week.)
Naturally, the D.C. Council was not pleased. Yvette Alexander (Ward 7) basically called DeMint an idiot: "He has no sense of what D.C. has to offer making statements like that ... If someone outside of [the District] is to make a gross misjudgment like that one, he should keep his comments to himself," she told the Times. Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), defending the District, said, "I'm a public school parent. My daughter is in third grade, and she is not likely to be a gang member." (However, he did damage his creditability somewhat by bizarrely adding, "I am quite pleased with the public school system." That's a pretty tough stance to defend.)
The spending bill has renewed debate over school vouchers as editorial boards across the country have weighed in. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has even gotten involved, trying to straddle both sides by coming out in support of the program, while disagreeing with vouchers generally. D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has not offered a formal position on vouchers, but has spoken in support of the Opportunity Scholarships in the past. Currently, 1,715 students attend nearly 49 private schools through the program.
A 2007 Department of Education report found no evidence of a statistically significant difference in test scores between students who were offered an OSP scholarship and students who were not offered a scholarship, and that students who were offered OSP scholarships did not report being more satisfied with school or feeling safer in school than those without. However, the program did have a generally positive impact on parent satisfaction and their perceptions of school safety.
Maybe because all public school kids join gangs?