Education could be the No. 1 civil rights issue of our time and has major implications for the nation’s future. When it comes to education reform, Obama has offered gimmickry, with contests and calls to throw more money at the problem, lest he upset the teachers union bosses who help bankroll Democratic campaigns.
Jindal, in stark contrast, last month signed one of the most significant school choice bills in U.S. history. It allows 380,000 students from low- and middle-income households across Louisiana to escape substandard schools. Sadly, Obama’s 2013 budget would trap 1,600 low-income Washington, D.C., children in failing schools by ending the District’s successful and popular school voucher program. Students in the D.C. voucher program have a 91 percent graduation rate, compared with 55 percent for union-run D.C. public schools. Meanwhile, Jindal just created the nation’s second-largest school voucher program, second only to the one Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed last year.
While Obama has doomed the future of children from some of the District’s poorest sections, Jindal has offered hope and opportunity to hundreds of thousands of families — empowering parents, rewarding success and instituting accountability.
