By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Obama is no fool.

He knows that the District of Columbia’s private school voucher program is wildly popular with students and parents in the nation’s capital.

We believe that’s why his administration has suddenly decided to increase funding for the program after its prior attempts to kill it, and a more recent decision to only provide level funding next year.

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Obama’s sudden change of heart means 85 more students will have the opportunity to attend quality private schools in the fall, just like the president’s daughters. We suspect the shift could be in response to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s pledge to enact a broad nationwide voucher program, a message welcomed by parents across the nation.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan tried to explain why the president shifted his stance on the D.C. vouchers without offending Obama’s critical campaign supporters – the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers unions and most ardent voucher haters.

Increasing enrollment from 1,615 to about 1,700 students would “allow for a statistically valid evaluation of the program, as directed by Congress,” Duncan told the Huffington Post. “The president and I are committed to ensuring that the education of the children currently in the DC Opportunity Scholarship program is not disrupted.”

But … “We remain convinced that our time and resources are best spend on reforming the public school system to benefit all students and we look forward to working with Congress in a bipartisan manner to advance that goal,” Duncan said.

And that’s the fundamental difference between Romney and Obama on education policy. Romney reportedly wants to create a universal voucher program so all American families can freely choose the schools best for their children, which likely would shrink the public education system, as well as the power and wealth of the unions.

Obama’s aim is just the opposite, despite the recent bone he’s thrown to DC students, because he is beholden to the unions, which have pumped millions of dollars and man-hours into the 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

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Obama’s key education initiative, Race to the Top, contains some important elements, like necessary changes to teacher evaluation processes, but the program is designed to grow the federal government’s role in schools and preserve the power of the unions.

The recent announcement also highlights the president’s ever-shifting position on the DC program; in 2011 he said he strongly opposed expanding the program, but signed an expansion into law two weeks later as part of a deal with conservatives to avert a government shut-down, the Huffington Post reports.

The president’s budget for fiscal year 2013, announced in February, didn’t contain additional funding to expand the program.

The fact that the president changed his mind again, and agreed to allow 85 more students to get quality instruction, is absolutely good news.

But we believe it’s merely a smokescreen to buoy support from parents and taxpayers who are smitten with Romney’s universal voucher proposal.

If re-elected, we’re certain the president would continue his campaign to shovel more money into the nation’s ineffective public school system on behalf of his sponsors in the national teachers unions.