Lateefah Simon: “we have a very fundamental policy decision here. Vouchers are being tried right now in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, and…”

“we have a very fundamental policy decision here. Vouchers are being tried right now in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, and perhaps elsewhere. That is the advantage of the Federal system. I happen to think we have to be very careful as we approach this. Among other things, we have very limited resources the Federal Government is putting out, and we are talking now in this budget about cutting back. In fiscal year 1949, the Federal Government spent 9 percent of its budget on education. This year, as I have said in the Chamber, it is 2 percent, but my colleague from Vermont has corrected me and said we are down to 1.4 percent. And now we are talking about dissipating these resources. I do not think that is wise. Second, while technically we do not mandate the D.C. schools to do this, what we say is here is some money and if you spend it for this, you can have it. And if you do not spend it for this, you cannot have the money, for a strapped D.C. school system. Third, as Senator Kennedy pointed out, the participating schools do not have to take all students. So there is a creaming process that hurts the public schools. There is just no question about it. That is the difference between this and the student aid program that we have. Then what we do is we fail to address the real problems of the D.C. public schools.”