[StBernard] School Choice: How You Can Help Heritage

[Westley Annis]

Watch the Video: Voices of School Choice
<http://members.myheritage.org/site/R?i=z91c00MlIW-BYPVKT53ryQ..> 

Printable Fact Sheet (PDF)
<http://members.myheritage.org/site/R?i=SWxsBIybZmUmqPIxT5vroQ..> 

Last year the Louisiana state legislature enacted private school choice
policy to give the state's parents more opportunity to choose a safe and
effective school for their children. Yet the U.S. Congress has voted to end
such opportunities for students in the District of Columbia.

We need your help to get out the message about the importance of school
choice-for students in D.C. and all across the country. 

*	Watch this new Heritage Foundation video on the D.C. school choice
program <http://members.myheritage.org/site/R?i=XiaAsUNK9dGNLnIRZjm1EQ..>
and send it to your friends.
	
*	Print this fact sheet on school choice
<http://members.myheritage.org/site/R?i=w1JCAXxAO2Eqfpy066vE5Q..>  (PDF
format) and use it to spread the word about real education reform.

President Obama signed a bill in March that phases out the D.C. Opportunity
Scholarship Program, which currently helps 1,700 underprivileged children
attend private schools instead of failing public schools. This program is so
popular that there are four applicants for every available slot.  In fact,
even the Obama administration's Department of Education released a report
confirming the program's success.

But unless the program is restored, the enrolled students will be dumped
back in the failing D.C. public school system-where only 58 percent of
students graduate and 12 percent reported being threatened or assaulted
during the past school year.

Statistics show that school choice works. Perhaps that is why 38 percent of
members of Congress have exercised school choice by sending their own
children to private school
<http://members.myheritage.org/site/R?i=eHGJqzZZskYwJXGW9zWBEQ..> .  Yet
some of those same senators voted against poor families in Washington D.C.
having that same opportunity.

The debate over Washington, D.C. schools symbolizes the national debate over
education. Who should decide where children go to school-their parents or
the government?  The clear answer is parents, and nobody makes the case
better than the children you'll see in this video
<http://members.myheritage.org/site/R?i=eS_lNAUKYZQx5wt5QSf1dQ..> . 

Thank you as always for your support of The Heritage Foundation.

Sincerely,

Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D.
President