Subject to Change, version 2.0

St. Albans? Of course he can't go there. Are you serious?

Vouchers Breathe New Life Into D.C. Catholic Schools

Tuition Rates, Morals Appeal to Parents

By V. Dion Haynes

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, June 13, 2005; Page A01

The fourth-grade girl with shoulder-length cornrows looked out at 160 students organized by grade level in nine rows across the gymnasium floor.

Wearing a red sweater and khaki shorts uniform, she stood in the "prayer space," which was consecrated with a small candle atop a round table, and led the children in reciting prayers of intercession to admired saints.

Finally, all the students shouted the Positive Pledge: "I am somebody. I'm capable and lovable. I am teachable; therefore I can learn. I can do anything when I try. I will respect myself and others. I will be the best I can be each day. I will not waste time because it's valuable. I'm so precious and bright. I am somebody."

So went the morning routine at St. Benedict the Moor in Northeast Washington, part of a Catholic school system trying to meld its sacred traditions with high secular expectations as it assumes a central role in a new federal voucher program to help low-income students attending failing public schools.

Of the 983 students in the voucher program, which provides federal grants to District children to use toward tuition and fees at private or religious schools, 61 percent are attending Catholic schools -- a percentage that is expected to remain roughly the same when the program expands to about 1,600 students this fall.

Education analysts say it is no surprise that the Archdiocese of Washington schools are so heavily involved in the experiment. Their tuition rates are usually less than the $7,500 maximum that voucher students are allotted, while tuition at the city's elite private schools is much higher. And several of the Catholic schools are in poor neighborhoods where parents dissatisfied with public schools are most likely to reside.

We don't want niggers in our school, we're not for intergration. Keep those niggers in their place, we'll have a better nation.

---Johnny Rebel

What Big Media Matt and other liberal voucher supports miss is that the program is designed to pacify blacks while keeping elite white schools white and ultimately subsidizing them. You can bet if the voucher as the $10-12K Madiera, St. Albans and Sidwell Friends were, it is doubtful that these kids would be admitted. To be fair, Sidwell has a generous scholarship program, but it is unlikely kids failing in Anacostia would be welcomed with open arms. When private schools in New York were asked if they would accept vouchers, they reacted as if you asked if they would be selling heroin at lunch. They didn't want niggers in their schools, except those that they chose or could pay the freight. The idea of kids waving vouchers and demanding entrance into Dalton scared them like few things would.

Voucher programs are sold to black parents as a solution, but in reality offer few alternatives but already existing, and increasing broke Catholic Schools, which desperately need the cash. Their ultimate goal is to subsidize white parents in racist white schools and help cover their costs. So they play on the desperation of black parents and hope enough of them swallow the bait and then they can hide behind them.