Talk about good news:

Let D.C. Try Vouchers (washingtonpost.com): "We all know D.C. public schools need improvement. According to the most recent census, the District spends $10,852 per student annually -- the third highest level of per-pupil spending in the nation -- yet test scores lag far behind. In the most recent math and reading assessments administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress:
• Seventy-six percent of D.C. fourth-graders performed below grade level in math, and only 10 percent read proficiently.
• Seventy-seven percent of eighth-graders performed below grade level in math, and only 12 percent were proficient in reading.
Based on the substantial amount of money pumped into the schools and the resultant test scores, I do not believe that money alone is going to solve the problem. This is why I believe the District should be allowed to try this pilot -- particularly for the sake of its low-income students."

This is the first crack in the damn of the unholy alliance between the teachers' unions and the Democratic Party which has worked to imprison poor children in one of the most anti-consumer monopolies: government schools. Someday, the simple notion of competition will free the poor who actually want to succeed from a decadent public school system that in many places has been destroyed by left-wing social engineering and teacher union inspired job protectionism.

Dianne Feinstein deserves some credit for breaking away from the teachers' lobby and the liberal establishment. She finally recognizes what many of us realized long ago, that the problems in public education cannot be solved by money because they are systemic and go to the heart of leftist teachers' union racket that has damaged the public school system since, at least, the 1960s.