On the recordMarch 16, 2010
I rise to continue a discussion of amendment No. 3456, which has been offered by Senators Collins, Byrd, Feinstein, Voinovich, Ensign, and myself, which would reauthorize the Opportunity Scholarship Program for students, needy and deserving students here in the District of Columbia, sometimes referred to as the DC voucher program. This amendment would, as I say, reauthorize this program which otherwise would either atrophy over time--there are still 1,300 students in it, but now, for the last 2 years, it has not been reauthorized. President Obama in his budget says this probably will be the last year that Federal funding would be in it. The nonprofit corporation that has administered this program has said--under the circumstances the Congress by our inaction and in some sense interruption have created--they cannot continue to administer the program. No one else has come forward to do that. This amendment says, effectively, it would be a tragedy, a human tragedy, 1,300 human tragedies--that 1,300 economically disadvantaged students in the District of Columbia who have been given a lifeline out of failing public schools to try to better educate themselves so they can live a life of self-sufficiency and satisfaction--that all that hope would be ended, all that opportunity would be ended.
