This excerpt is reprinted with permission from the Wall Street Journal.

"The results of the first-ever analysis of how the nation's largest urban districts fare in reading and writing brought bad news last week. The numbers, showing large disparities in achievement, probably reinforced prejudices about the country's largely-minority urban school districts. Here in Washington, the analysis should spark serious discussion -- if not soul-searching -- among folks who have closed their eyes to the plight of children literally in their own back yard. Too many are standing in the way of scholarships that would give these children a chance to attend private schools. Until now, the National Assessment of Educational Progress has only measured academic achievement state to state, including the District of Columbia in those measures. This year, to see how they stack up against other districts with similar demographics and to establish a benchmark for themselves, several of the other large city school districts volunteered to have their NAEP data collected and reported. Now, for the first time, the performance of the District of Columbia can be compared with that of similar districts." And "the disaggregated results from NAEP for the District of Columbia are particularly striking. White D.C. 4th graders score the highest of any subgroup tested, while black D.C. 4th graders score 60 points lower" but "we can't track this gap over time since by 8th grade there aren't enough white students in the D.C. public schools to constitute a statistically significant subgroup. That's likely because parents with the means to get their kids out of D.C. public schools choose to do so. Parents who want to give their children a better education but can't afford to pay for it are left without choices." But "the president and I believe education is a civil right." And "the NAEP results should be a wake-up call to all who care, or say they care, about the children living in the nation's capital." While "opportunity scholarships alone will not solve the crisis" they "allow two crucial things to happen: In the immediate term, they would let thousands of kids escape a debilitated -- and debilitating -- system, and in the longer term, they would force the entrenched local education establishment to reform and improve, as has occurred in other choice cities."