From the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archdiocese of Washington, DC

ACTION: Please call Congressional Leaders to urge their support for full funding of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.

The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) is at grave risk. This innovative program has made a difference in the lives of thousands of low-income children in our nation's capital by giving them a chance at a high-quality education in a non-public school. Without action by Congress, this federally funded program will end in 2010, forcing these children back to failing public schools. Don't let Congress deny them hope for the future.

Five years ago, community and political leaders in DC worked with Congress in a bipartisan effort to create the OSP, part of a unique three-sector strategy to improve education across the city by providing funding for DC's public and charter schools as well as for scholarships for poor families to seek a quality education at the school of their choice.
The OSP is a proven success story. Reports have demonstrated high parental satisfaction and significant academic gains among scholarship recipients. Demand is high with over 1,700 students in the program and more waiting to get in. More than half of the students have chosen to attend Catholic schools in the District.

The OSP doesn't cost DC residents a dime. But the end of the program will be a fiscal disaster with the loss of $54 million annually in federal education funds for DC public and charter schools and families. The additional cost to the DC taxpayers to pay for the students pushed out of their non-public schools and back into the public school system is an estimated $25 million. This is at a time when the city faces an $800 million budget deficit.

Don't let Congress kill a program that works. Earlier this year, Congress voted to end funding for the program at the end of the 2009-10 school year. Next year's federal budget proposes to extend funding for students currently in the program but would bar siblings and other children from entering the program. This would mean the slow death of a successful program that is transforming lives and moving some of our nation's most at-risk children out of poverty.

Is this what these children deserve? At least 90 of the 123 DC public schools are reportedly under some form of federal notice to improve. Even Michelle Rhee, the Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools, and a champion of education reform, recently admitted to The Washington Post, "the reality in Washington, DC is that we continue to fail the majority of kids who are put in our care every day."

Don't let Congress deny them their hope for the future. The bill that appropriates funds for the District of Columbia, the Fiscal Year 2010 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill, is scheduled to go before the House Appropriations Committee on July 7 and the Senate Appropriations Committee July 8-9.

TAKE ACTION NOW:

1. Please call the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to urge support for full funding of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.

2. In addition, please call your Representative and/or Senator if he or she serves on either Committee to urge support for full funding of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.

The names and telephone numbers of Committee members can be found on our Contact Your Elected Officials page.