Media Center

School Choice Advocates Stand With Families to Promote Parental Choice in Education

06/18/2009

(Washington, D.C., June 18, 2009)—School choice advocates today questioned the National Education Association (NEA) for their aggressive stance against D.C. school vouchers, arguing that the organization is misinforming Members of Congress about the success of the program.

In a letter last week to U.S. Senators—a letter written to oppose the Senate’s consideration of vouchers to improve education quality for the children of America’s service men and women—the NEA argued that the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program "has been a failure." This letter follows one sent in March warning Members of Congress that they would receive a negative mark on the “NEA Legislative Report Card” if they supported D.C. school choice.

“The NEA's position opposing private school choice for disadvantaged families is well known, but facts are facts,” said John Schilling, interim president of the Alliance for School Choice. “Independent federal evaluations of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and four consecutive studies from the School Choice Demonstration Project have clearly shown that the D.C. voucher program improves student achievement, boosts parental satisfaction, and provides students from very low-income D.C. families with a quality educational experience.”

"When more than 8,000 D.C. parents with an average family income of $22,000 per year apply for 3,000 available scholarships, it says a lot about the desire for educational choice," Schilling said. "The real failure—and tragedy—is that more than 200 eligible children who expected scholarships for next year are now being denied entrance to the program, despite Congress having provided full funding for the 2009-2010 school year."

Meanwhile, the Alliance hailed U.S. Senate efforts to consider school vouchers for military families. News reports have indicated that the Senate Armed Services Committee will soon explore the issue of vouchers for children of America's service men and women. This move comes in response to complaints about public education offerings and the educational disruption caused by military personnel relocations.

Schilling said that Congress should consider the Military Family Scholarship Act—model legislation approved by the American Legislative Exchange Council and supported by the Alliance for School Choice—as starting point for developing an effective school choice initiative for military families.

“We expect so much from our military,” he said. “The least we can do is make sure that the children of the people who protect and defend our country are provided with access to great schools.”

The Alliance—along with its sister organization, Advocates for School Choice—promotes vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs as essential components to comprehensive education reform in our nation.

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The Alliance for School Choice is a national leader in promoting school vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs. For more information, visit www.AllianceforSchoolChoice.org.