Congressmen opt for private schools.

Forty-four percent of U.S. senators and 30% of representatives send their children to private schools, despite widespread opposition in Congress lo extending the same school choice to the rest of the American public, a Heritage Foundation survey discovered. Half of the members of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, which plays a direct role in school reform legislation, and 25% of the Republicans and 14% of the Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee have removed their sons and daughters from the nation's public education system. The high percentage of members of Congress who opt for private schools for their offspring stands in stark contrast to the 10% of children nationwide who attend private schools,

"It's sheer hypocrisy for members of Congress to fight school choice while their own children are cloistered away in safe, high-quality private schools," insists Allyson Tucker, manager of Heritage's Center for Education Policy and co-author of a report based on the survey's findings.

She points out that the only education reform bill under consideration in Congress--the Goals 2000: Educate America Act (passed by the House in October, 1993, and pending in the Senate)--contains no provision for school choice, which would give parents vouchers redeemable at the school of their choice, whether public, private, or parochial...