The issue of school choice is one that Barack Obama just can’t seem to escape.

In his adopted hometown of Washington, DC, the President has given families and lawmakers the silent treatment on the future of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program - a program that for years has allowed students to escape failing District schools and attend local private ones. Though families are over the moon with the options DCOSP has opened up to them and kids are doing better than ever in their new schools, Obama has quietly cut funding for the federally budgeted program with the stroke of a pen and denied new applicants the opportunity to enroll.

By contrast, in his true hometown of Chicago, 22,000 elementary school kids are on the verge of receiving the same hope and change now closed to DC families.

A bill that passed the Illinois Senate last month and catapulted out of the House Executive Committee (10 to 1) last week on a positive trajectory to a full vote would rescue students from the worst public schools in the Windy City through the offer of a voucher their parents could use to enroll them in the private school of their choice.

And the irony? The proposed Chicago voucher program has been championed by a former colleague of (and sometimes adviser to) the President: Democratic state Senator (Rev.) James Meeks.

Meeks joins a long line of school choice leaders who break the myth that it is a purely political issue:

“To me education is a moral issue, and we’re offering a humane answer from people of both parties and all colors who think it’s a moral tragedy to see three generations of Chicago children go without a real education.”

In an attempt to win back her crown as Miss Congeniality among anti-school-choice Democrats, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) strolled to the well of the Senate yesterday evening to stab her fellow Mainer, Sen. Susan Collins, in the back by voting against the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Ms. Collins is one of the program’s chief champions. Despite the courage demonstrated by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Bill Nelson, Mark Warner, and Joe Lieberman - who voted FOR the voucher program - Sen. Snowe’s status as the lone Republican vote against the program was anything but courageous. Whether she likes Sen. Collins or not - or whether she wants to curry favor with Democrats or not (she does), Sen. Snowe’s vote today left DC kids… snowed under.

(In another bit of Maine news, yesterday, the state legislature again denied families another form school choice when their Education Committee endorsed an “innovative schools” bill which had all references to charter school removed before moving on to the main body.)

Unions are becoming reform minded? My foot.

Nowhere in today’s Washington, DC based news coverage of the Schools Chancellor’s layoffs is there any word - anything from the teachers interviewed or their union leaders - that addresses student achievement. Nothing.

Losing one’s job is an awful thing. I know people who don’t have jobs right now; I’ve lived with people who were unemployed.

The jobs lost from the DC teacher layoffs this week - an estimated 229 out of almost 400 people laid off - may have been the lowest hanging fruit, those who - for some reason - were not performing great with kids. Maybe.

We won’t know - and we can’t know as the union sues to block this action and the Chancellor’s office is bound by privacy rights against talking about how they determined who would get the axe. But regardless of why and how it was done, it would be nice if just one of the teachers out there would consider whether or not he or she is really good for kids before they start demanding a right that doesn’t exist - a right to a job teaching kids in a city where 86% are still in schools called failing.

You’ve been called a “great guy” by democrats who think you will help them grow school reform.  You’ve “made a lot of progress,” say university types.  You’re the “compromise candidate,” because the unions have endorsed you.

Now comes the hard part.

Frankly, you’re one of the few national education leaders I do not know, which gives me some rare objectivity in the matter. That, and the fact that my organization has no horse in the race, no member group to protect, no current ties to you at all.

So, let me offer some fresh advice about what you can expect – and what might take you by surprise.

1) Everyone will want to claim you as his own.  Allowing them to do so will compromise your efforts.

More “Letter to Arne Duncan, Next Secretary of Education”