To cut to the chase…..an Illinois senator among the most liberal,
the one most credited for being a ‘godfather’ to the ambitious young
Barack Obama, is showing cracks in the tough opposition to
a….conservative cause?

It’s for the interests of the children.

Low-income families in the District of Columbia got some
encouraging words yesterday from an unlikely source. Illinois Senator
Richard Durbin signaled that he may be open to reauthorizing the
Opportunity Scholarship Program, a school voucher program that allows
1,700 disadvantaged kids to opt out of lousy D.C. public schools and
attend a private school.

“I have to work with my colleagues if this is going to be
reauthorized, which it might be,” said Mr. Durbin at an appropriations
hearing Tuesday morning. He also said that he had visited one of the
participating private schools and understood that “many students are
getting a good education from the program.”

Sometimes it seems this administration will do anything to reverse the policies of the previous administration, regardless of evidence to its reasonableness. Durbin may be seeing the light of the merit of school vouchers that President Bush did, and politics aside…..will back them.

We’ll see, says the WSJ.

We think Mr. Durbin deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Assuming his arguments are in good faith, there’s no reason he and his
colleagues can’t compromise on testing and reauthorize a popular
program that extends hope and opportunity to kids whom the public
education establishment has ill-served.

We were promised hope by this admistration, after all.