So Far, So Good, Mr. Trump Seven weeks in and he’s sticking to his promises to help the urban poor and improve school choice. Jason Riley
https://www.wsj.com/articles/so-far-so-good-mr-trump-1488931786
During the campaign, Donald Trump said that improving the quality of life in our nation’s inner cities would be a focus of his presidency and that better outcomes for the urban poor would flow from better educational opportunities. Apparently, it wasn’t just talk.
Since winning the election, Mr. Trump has tapped a school-choice stalwart in Betsy DeVos to head the Education Department. In a joint address to Congress last week, he called for an education bill that would allow low-income families “to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.” On Friday, Mr. Trump and Mrs. DeVos visited a Catholic school in Orlando, Fla., where hundreds of low-income students attend with the help of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program.
The Washington Post reported that Mr. Trump’s was the first visit to a Catholic school by a sitting president since Ronald Reagan in 1984 and “a clear signal that the Trump administration intends to push forward with expanding school choice as a key priority.” That’s welcome news to millions of low-income minority parents nationwide who have long expressed overwhelming support for reforms that would free their children to matriculate at schools not controlled by teachers unions.
President Obama also claimed to support school choice, but he was referring only to those education options approved by the teachers unions that bankroll the Democratic Party. In practice, the Obama administration worked to shut down voucher programs in Washington and elsewhere and thus reduce choice for the disadvantaged. For Mr. Trump, school choice means the parents get to decide—not the president or special-interest groups. There’s a reason why 56% of voters tell pollsters that President Trump is doing what he said he would do.
Now that the Senate has approved Ben Carson as housing secretary, the administration is poised to help poor communities in other ways. A primary function of the Housing and Urban Development Department is to oversee various rental-assistance programs for people in need. How these HUD initiatives are administered at the federal and local levels can have a major impact on the life outcomes of our most vulnerable citizens.
As someone who was raised in poverty before becoming a world-renowned brain surgeon, Mr. Carson knows that his background differs greatly from that of the typical Washington bureaucrat, let alone cabinet secretary. In some respects this means he will bring a different perspective to the task. But it also means that he has his work cut out for him. During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Carson said that in preparation for the new job he would go on a “listening tour” of the country. Instead of talking only to “the sage people of D.C.,” he quipped, “I want to hear from people with boots on the ground who are administering programs.” Imagine that. CONTINUE AT SITE
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