What would you fight for?

Friends of ACE, I’ve been thinking a lot this week about those NBC Notre Dame commercials that ask, “What would you fight for?” In ACE, we’ve always fought for Catholic schools, but the recent debate over the parental choice program in Washington, DC has made it clear to me that the fight for Catholic schools [...]

DC Program Overview

DC Children First has provided this helpful PDF that provides a clear and concise overview of the DC Opportunity Scholarship program.

So what can I do?

The recent passage of the $410 billion omnibus bill ensured that the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program would not continue indefinitely without a fight. In order for the scholarship to continue, it needs to be re-authorized by Congress. We hope that will happen sometime this spring, though as you’ll see in a post below, we have [...]

Summer leadership opportunities

Advocates for Parental Choice Symposium Are you eager to become a warrior for equal educational access?  This summer, July 5-17, the ACE Fellowship is launching the Advocates for Parental Choice Symposium, the nation’s premier seminar for future leaders of the school choice movement. Week 1 will bring to Notre Dame’s campus the issue’s most influential [...]

Getting up to speed on the DC parental choice situation

The New York Times first reported on the threat to the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program in this article on February 27 that nicely summarized the situation.  Since then, the spending bill has passed and the language that threatens the OSP remained intact.  President Obama’s press secretary and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, have indicated [...]

Calling on Obama’s courage

In his New York Times op-ed on President Obama’s educational reform plans, columnist David Brooks expresses his hope that the President will stand up for parental choice in DC. Obama hopes to change incentives so districts do the effective and hard things instead of the easy and mediocre things. The question is whether he has [...]

Fenty joins Duncan to support “grandfathering”

The Washington Times reports that DC Mayor Adrian Fenty has finally broken his silence on the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.  Fenty said Political leaders can debate the merits of vouchers, but we should not disrupt the education of children who are presently enrolled in private schools through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.” The Times’s headline, [...]

Report: House Democrats do not expect to reauthorize the OSP

The Washington Times has obtained an internal document that indicates that House Democrats have no intention of reauthorizing the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, in stark contrast to Dick Durbin’s and other’s claims that the program would receive a fair hearing. It seems the plan is to let the current scholarship recipients continue to receive the [...]

Why does Durbin oppose parental choice?

My wife and I sent our three children to Catholic schools. That was our choice. We continued to pay our property taxes to support public schools. I have openly supported public school referenda in my community. I have done everything in my State to make sure there was adequate funding for public schools, but we [...]

Obama’s silence is “thundering” on DC OSP

In a 5 minute video, Bill McGurn, Jason Riley, and Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal discuss the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.  They provide a concise summary of Congress’s recent actions that threaten to end the program,they identify key figures in the debate, they explain some of the benefits of parental choice programs in [...]