By Kathryn Hickok
January 26-February 1 will be the 15th annual National School Choice Week, the world’s largest celebration of parental choice and effective education options for all children.
National School Choice Week (NSCW) “informs, inspires, and empowers parents to discover the K-12 education options available for their children.” Week organizers say the event will partner with 209 schools and organizations in Oregon to raise awareness of the K-12 education options available to students here, including traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home schools.
School choice means empowering parents to choose the educational environments that will best help their children succeed. Thirty-three states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have expanded students’ academic opportunities through 75 school choice programs. More than 22 million students are eligible to participate in a school choice program—about 40% of all students nationwide. When parents have choices, students have more opportunities for their individual learning needs and goals to be met.
Oregon should put parents “in the driver’s seat” of their children’s education through school choice, so all students can have access to an effective, meaningful, and empowering education.
Kathryn Hickok is Executive Vice President at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization, and Director of Cascade’s Children’s Scholarship Fund-Oregon program.
