Supporters of the New Jersey Opportunity Scholarship Act (OSA) (S-1872/A-2810) continue to advocate for the bill against the backdrop of a milestone year for school choice legislation across the country. The group We Can Do Better New Jersey urges citizens to contact members of the Senate and Assembly in their district, following a disappointing summer when the bill was not posted in the Assembly amidst the passage of a state budget plan. See related article below. (Click here for information on the current status of the bill)
Partners
We Can Do Better New Jersey is partnering with others to collectively expand their reach. The broader group includes: Excellent Education for Everyone (E3) , the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the Black Ministers Council and Latino Leadership Alliance in New Jersey, and New Jersey Dioceses – all devoted to improving urban education through parental school choice. The organizations are bringing together families, legislative officials, and community leaders for a rally on December 1, 2011 at the State House in Trenton, NJ to encourage Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) to move the bill.
“Successful school choice legislation in the US requires a strong grassroots initiative,” said Christine Healey, Executive Director, International Education Foundation (IEF). “We’re very mindful that if this becomes a partisan cause, there is a greater chance of the eventual law being overturned. This needs to stand the test of time.”
Perspective
John Schoenig, J.D., M.Ed., Director, Program for K-12 Educational Access, Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), University of Notre Dame, offers some perspective. “The eyes of the nation are on New Jersey; truly this would be an inflection point in the history of the school choice movement,” he said. “This is when things get difficult – the last ten yards are the hardest – but nonetheless it has to get done.”
John, whose research interests include school choice, education reform and policy, and Catholic social thought, explains that this year’s nationwide legislative advances are unprecedented. Following 2002 Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the game-changing US Supreme Court ruling that developed a five-part test in the allowance of school vouchers, the school choice movement went through a period of radical expansion in 2004-05. “We’re in the midst of another one,” he said. “The difference now is that we’re seeing key moments and quantitative data – growth in the number of programs and the number of children enrolled in schools of choice. This will go down as the best year in the history of school choice.”
Progress
Today, more than 200,000 children across 14 states and the District of Columbia are benefiting from private school choice options, including voucher programs, education tax credits, and savings accounts for tuition at private schools of parents’ choosing. “Regardless of which metrics are used, the progress is amazing,” he said. “We have an opportunity now to completely change the landscape by providing real access to families who want a Catholic education.”
Those numbers will be eclipsed rapidly if the victories and trajectory continue. In addition to Indiana’s far-reaching school choice scholarship program and tax deduction implemented this year, Florida expanded its options, including eligibility for special needs children. “Indiana is now the most choice-friendly, option-friendly state, and that’s up from nothing only two and a half years ago,” John said. “And in Florida, everybody is winning: approximately 35,000 children are enrolled in schools of choice, corporations benefit from the full tax credit, and the state is savings upwards of $40 million a year. It’s a true educational achievement that started out as something completely divisive. It is now obvious that this works.”
Similar advances have been made in North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. In New Jersey’s neighboring state, the Pennsylvania Senate passed a major proposal in late October 2011 under which children of low-income families within attendance boundaries of the lowest-performing public schools would be eligible for vouchers. A few weeks prior, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference (PCC) had applauded Governor Tom Corbett’s plan to create a school voucher program and increase the already successful Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program.
IEF’s Christine Healey is pleased about the national momentum. “The New Jersey OSA is a pilot program,” she said. “Camden is a city of children, and this is the greatest civil rights issue of our time. Additionally, taxpayers need to care about this because current educational costs are out of control, and students are not meeting basic proficiency levels. Spending more money is not the answer. New Jersey needs to get in line with the school choice movement that is happening all over the country.”
Related Articles
CSDP Leaders Advocate for Opportunity Scholarship Act (Advance, May 2011)
Saving Catholic Education (The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com, September 30, 2011
The Year of School Choice (The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com, July 5, 2011)
Additional Resources
Hope for America’s Children, School Choice Yearbook, 2010-11
