At last week’s hearing on the DC Promise Establishment Act numerous speakers challenged Councilman Catania to open the program to all DC students, including those from private schools and homeschoolers. The Councilman responded that including homeschoolers “is something that no other program like this in the country has done thus far.” It appears that he may not have had all of the facts.

Thanks to the research of an industrious DC citizen we now know that two of the largest such programs in the country do, in fact, accept all students, including homeschoolers. The Oklahoma Promise program provides a similar amount of money to low-income students in Oklahoma who meet the requisite criteria. The Oklahoma program accepts applicants from all schools and has specific information in their application for homeschoolers.

Even more interesting though is that the Washington state College Bound program accepts all students, including homeschoolers. This is interesting because Councilman Catania is clearly well-versed in this program. In fact, the first speaker at the hearing was a gentleman from Washington State who had traveled to DC specifically to talk about the Washington state program and the amazing successes they had seen. And the truth is that they had seen amazing success. The high school graduation rate for students who were a part of this program had gone from 59% to 78% in just a few short years. Councilman Catania was so impressed with this program in Washington state that he said, “This is a recipe for success and it is one I am eager to replicate city-wide.”

We wholeheartedly agree that a program showing such a clear benefit is the same sort of program we should establish here in the District. However, let’s not decide that we can just drop thousands of students from being able to access this program and still believe that we are treating the citizens of DC fairly. If we agree that Washington State has an excellent program that has demonstrated clear benefits, then let’s follow their example and extend this program to all of the citizens of the District.

Resources:
Oklahoma Promise Application
Washington College Bound Q & A