Results tagged “vouchers”

UPDATE: Wesley Denton, a spokesperson for Sen. DeMint, has responded by email:

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) may be a reliable Republican, but he's never made much noise when it comes to the District. That changed last week when he successfully added an amendment to legislation granting the District a voting seat in the House that would effectively gut the city's gun laws. While many a Republican before him have done the same -- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) first among them -- it is his move that could end up sinking the measure.

Federal officials using the District as a testing ground on which to push their preferred domestic programs is nothing new, particularly when it comes to the city’s public schools (ahem, Sen. Landrieu). True to form, nestled deep within President Bush’s 2009 budget proposal is a $5 million increase for a school voucher initiative called the DC Opportunity Scholarship program (OSP). Currently, around 1,900 low-income students receive scholarships up to $7,500 to attend area private schools under the program, the creation of which was authorized through federal legislation in 2003.