D.C. Choice: another elective course in school reform.

• Author: Paige, Rod
• Position: Education

Opportunity scholarships "can be the road to quality education and all that it means--personal growth, economic success, and a greater range of employment alternatives. Education is freedom."

ON JAN. 22, 2004, Congress made a historic decision to fund opportunity scholarships in the nation's capital. As with all such decisions, it was about ideas, values, facts, and dreams. It came with determined advocacy, vigorous opposition, dramatic moments, and political consequences.

Educational choice is important for two reasons. First, it extends civil rights and social justice. Second, it enhances school effectiveness. The introduction of this initiative in the District of Columbia comes 50 years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision and 40 years after Martin Luther King, Jr., demanded a full measure of the American promise. Such scholarships help remove the chains of bureaucracy. They thee low-income students to obtain a better education in a school of their choosing. We have turned a corner.

The "D.C. Choice Incentive Program" launches a five-year effort to provide close to 2,000 low-income students in the District with grants of up to $7,500 each to attend the school of their choice, be it private, parochial, or other. While there are similar programs already in states such as Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Colorado, Washington's is the first that will be Federally funded. It will be overseen by the Department of Education in partnership with the District of Columbia. Because it is in the nation's capital, it will be given great scrutiny. It will be a model that will be examined, dissected, second-guessed, and debated each and every day.

We want D.C. Choice to be an exemplary program for the nation. Of course, by themselves, opportunity scholarships will not solve every problem lacing schools. The scholarships must be part of a larger set of reforms and adjustments. There is considerable evidence that opportunity scholarships can make a positive difference. For example, there are reports showing that most of the students who received such scholarships in Florida have progressed more than one grade level on a standardized test for each of the four years they have been in the program. The benefits extend well beyond the students. In the state of Florida, as well as in cities like Milwaukee, Wis., and Cleveland, Ohio, competition has raised the performance of the public schools themselves. In other words, competition changed the educational environment.

D.C. Choice did not come easily. The effort to obtain passage was demanding. Powerful forces were at work to prevent choice. The strong opposition of the union establishment, some liberal...