While London prepared to elect its new mayor this week, the mayor of Washington, D.C., headed to Congress to testify on education financing for his city. Mayor Adrian Fenty, a black Democrat who serves as local chairman for the Obama campaign, endorsed President Bush’s proposed 2009 budget for D.C. education--which includes $18 million for the renewal of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.

Enacted in 2004, the Opportunity Scholarship program provides private school vouchers of up to $7500 for 1,900 low-income students, allowing them to escape one of the most troubled school systems in America. Washington, D.C. spends $14,400 per student--more than any state--only to report the poorest 4^th and 8^th grade test scores and one of the lowest graduation rates in the country--just 59 percent according to one estimate. Not surprisingly, parents of voucher students register strong satisfaction with the opt-out program.

The Mayor's testimony was an important green light for the scholarship program--though only the first of many it will need in order to advance to renewal. On Tuesday, the Washington Post editorialized on behalf of the program and sternly warned against congressional wrangling over it:

"Political ideology and partisan gamesmanship should not be allowed to blow apart the educational hopes of hundreds of D.C. children… What's at stake is not a political point of honor but the opportunity for children to go to schools that work for them."

No-nonsense, children-first influence is also coming from new D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who recognizes that the school system benefits from the competitive effect of choice and charter schools. Rhee, 38, is results-oriented and entrepreneurial. In 1997 she launched The New Teacher Project to recruit talented teachers for "high-need" urban schools serving low-income and minority students; to date the group has placed 28,000 teachers. In her current role as as head of the D.C. school system, Rhee has crossed swords with teachers unions and the education bureaucracy, while pushing to empower those closest to students. "I would never, as long as I am in this role, do anything to limit another parent's ability to make a choice for their child. Ever," Rhee told the Wall Street Journal in December.

More and more Washington, D.C. parents are exercising and asking for school choice. Some 20,000 of the 55,000 D.C. students now attend the city's 72 public charter schools, which often have waiting lists. And while the Opportunity Scholarship program is currently limited to 1,900 students, about 7,200 have applied. To meet increasing demand, the Washington, D.C. voucher program needs not only to be extended but expanded as well.

Jennifer Marshall is director of domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.