WASHINGTON, D.C. – D.C. Public Schools wants to give all students studying a foreign language a free trip abroad, starting with 400 eighth- through eleventh-grade students who received all-expenses-paid trips this summer.

Chancellor Kaya Henderson told The Washington Post the district spent $2 million to fund student trips abroad this summer – to Central and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia –  for a total of 19 group trips to 13 countries. The money for the trips came from the D.C. Public Education Fund, which uses private donations, and the focus is to make students – many from low-income families that can’t otherwise afford the trips – more worldly and culturally competent.

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“I’ve been dreaming of this my whole entire life,” Henderson said of the new program. “To have the ability to make it a reality is the ultimate.”

Henderson told the Post her experience studying in Spain in high school and Venezuela while at Georgetown University, “completely changed my life.”

“I know what the power of language and study abroad can do for regular little neighborhood kids like me,” she said.

“If our children can master standardized tests but they can’t operate in the world, then we haven’t done them a service in terms of their education,” she said. “So this is as important as anything they do in a classroom.”

The reality is, however, that children in D.C.’s public schools are not mastering standardized tests, or even basic academics.

The Washington Post pointed out in October that just over half of white students scored proficient or better in geometry, while only 8 percent of Hispanic students and 4 percent of black students met that threshold. For English, the achievement gap is 82 percent of white students are “college ready,” while only 25 percent of Hispanic students and 20 percent of black students are performing at the same level.

“Too many of our students are unprepared for first-year college course work, even if they are succeeding in high school and graduating,” superintendent Hanseul Kang told reporters last year. “They get to college and have to take remedial courses.”

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But instead of focusing more on education basics like math and English, district officials are pinning their hopes of free trips abroad to lift student achievement, though it’s unclear how the trips will help raise student scores.

D.C. Council member David Grosso, head of the city’s education committee, said he wants to consider funding the free student trips through the district’s general budget if officials see the type of academic gains they’re hoping for.

Henderson is convinced students who spend a week zip lining in a rain forest, or visiting with students in other countries who don’t speak English, will have a significant impact in helping them learn, and she expects to see the results in coming years.

“If we can do that (show the trips improve academics), we should be able to make the case for why this should be a standard line item in the budget, and I’m going to push for that as well,” she told the Post. “I’m not going to allow money to be a barrier to what I believe is an incredibly important educational experience.”

Student Alyia Black, who recently went on a weeklong trip to Costa Rica with 18 other D.C. eighth-graders, talked with students in that country, admired the beautiful waters, and become “a little more independent” by the time she returned home, her mother told the news site.

“She has an older sister who she stays really close to,” Melanie Black said, “but this gave her a chance to be on her own.”

Student Anis Hassan, 13, said he’d always wanted to get a passport, and he enjoyed riding a zip line and swimming in a pool, but it was visiting with Costa Rican students that was a humbling experience.

“They didn’t really have very much. Just the basics,” Anis said. “But I noticed how they didn’t complain at all. I told myself I need to stop complaining.”

Many folks who commented online clearly believe the free vacations for D.C. students is a waste of money, or could be accomplished for much less than $2 million for 400 students.

“My problem with this is $5,000 per child for a week. Figure $1,000 for airfare, $500 for other. That leaves $500 a day for a week overseas. Keep in mind that tax payments are reduced for donations to the non-profit funding this so $600,000 or so of this is government funded,” Owlfan12000 wrote. “Who is getting $500 a night for each kid?”

“Looks like a program intended primarily to generate newspaper coverage for DCPS and Henderson. If it costs $3,000 to send a student to Costa Rica for one week (plus an additional $1,000 for the share of the chaperone’s cost), how to justify spending $4,000 each on a select group of 800 students? Of course, if this is private foundation money rather than DCPS money, then there is no opportunity cost to DCPS,” LaborLawyer added.  “But, if/when it’s DCPS money being used for these $4,000/student trips, then a rational administrator must ask whether spending $4,000/student for a week in Costa Rica is the most effective use of that DCPS money.”

“Free free free in America, everything is free,” Patriots of Long Island wrote. “And the average American taxpayer wonders why they can’t go on vacation to these places or have no savings.”