“George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

So said Kanye West in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when hundreds of poor, mostly black, residents of New Orleans were stranded in the Superdome and atop flood houses in the Big Easy.

No matter, with the election of Barack Obama, surely the Federal government now attends to the best interests of disadvantaged minority populations, right?  Not always.

In 2004 Congress passed the District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act, providing vouchers of up to $7,500 for low-income children in the District to attend private schools. Since the District’s public schools are among the worst in the nation and considering that poor parents love their children, too, it’s no surprise that parents jumped on the opportunity with such enthusiasm that the program developed a waiting list. A recent U.S. Department of Education study found that children in the program scored about the same in math and slightly more in reading.  Nonetheless, voucher parents were much more satisfied with their chosen schools than public school parents were with their schools.*

The voucher program operated with the strong support of the mayor, the District’s “state” superintendent, and the low-income parents of the voucher recipients (90% black, 9% Latino), who finally got the chance to give their children what their neighbors Mr. & Mrs. Obama give to their children: a quality private education.  The parents were happy and the kids’ performance improved modestly.  In an era when the Treasury hands out hundreds of billions of dollars to shoddy banks and failed carmakers, certainly the voucher program’s modest success was worth the paltry $15 million annual cost.

Not so fast!  Enter the teachers’ unions and their partner-in-disparity, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s non-voting Delegate to the House of Representatives.  She made clear her opposition to the program, telling the Post, “…the Democratic Congress is not about to extend this program.”

With Democratic majorities in both houses and at the behest of the teachers’ unions, Congress, fresh from passing $410 billion budget bill, callously failed to renew the voucher program.

If we ran our elections the way we run many of our public schools, there would be civil rights investigations and lawsuits to match.  Instead, when public-sector mediocrity denies poor children their right to a decent education, thereby reducing their future life opportunities, the Right doesn’t much bother with an issue it never noticed anyway and the Left willfully averts its eyes toward its well-heeled funders.  If voting patterns still hold true, the beneficiaries of these programs would vote overwhelmingly Democrat anyway; the G.O.P. has nothing to gain, the Democrats have nothing to lose.  Sadly, the children have much to lose.

In noting the disparities in the quality of public education in America, Rev. Al Sharpton, in a rare moment of clarity, stated why public education continues to fail millions of Americans:

The people standing in the schoolhouse doorway now are people we thought were our friends, liberals wearing suits not bibb overalls, principals and teachers who want to uphold the status quo — condescending bigots who perpetuate a system we know is profoundly unequal.

Conservatives typically don’t make public education their issue, except when it comes to biology (evolution), health (sex), and school prayer.  Liberals typically advocate the use of government power to equalize social opportunity and even equalize social outcomes.  Even though one would normally expect the Left to advocate policies that best benefit marginalized populations, the Democratic party still knows that both money and ballots talk: the nation’s two big teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, support Democratic candidates with massive investments, volunteers, and votes.  When the interests of the unions conflict with the interests of disadvantaged children of color, the former constituency holds the trump card.

Tellingly, Ms. Norton also told the Post several months ago, “We have to protect the children, who are the truly innocent victims here.”  Indeed they are.