Testimony in Support of the Education Equity Emergency Bill
Kathryn Hickok
Director, Children’s Scholarship Fund-Portland
Portland, Oregon
January 16, 2014
Chair Hass and members of the committee, my name is Kathryn Hickok, and I am director of the Children’s Scholarship Fund-Portland. For 15 years our program has provided privately funded partial-tuition scholarships to children from lower-income Oregon families. The Children’s Scholarship Fund-Portland has helped nearly 650 Oregon Kindergarten through 12th grade students have access to diverse educational settings that meet their individual needs.
CSF-Portland is a partner program of the national Children’s Scholarship Fund, headquartered in New York. Our mission is to maximize educational opportunity by offering tuition assistance for children from needy families. We provide partial tuition scholarships based solely on income that are usable at any private school chosen by the students’ parents or guardians. To be eligible for a scholarship, families must demonstrate financial need.
Our experience with the educational choices made by the lower-income Oregon families participating in our program demonstrates several key points relevant to this bill:
First, lower-income parents want to take charge of their children’s futures through educational opportunity. Parents in our program value high-quality education as the way out of poverty for their children and make the commitment and sacrifice of paying, on average, more than half of their tuition out of their own pockets.
Second, demand for diverse educational opportunities in Oregon is real. When our program began in 1999, the parents of more than 6,600 children applied for only 550 available scholarships. Our waiting list continues to grow every week. The last thing parents who call me want to do is see their children not succeed in school.
Third, it does not take a lot of money to change a child’s life. Our scholarships average about $1,500 for a full school year, and that amount makes the difference in allowing children to attend schools they love, that motivate them to do their best and foster their individual talents. The average tuition of our elementary students this year is only about $3,600. So, a relatively small amount of money truly can make the deciding difference for families in where they send their children to school.
While they don’t have much discretionary income, CSF families always must pay part of their tuition themselves. Because they have “skin in the game,” CSF parents are motivated to choose schools carefully and to encourage their children to make the most of their opportunities. When empowered with a modest amount of financial help, parents will invest their own money, time, effort, and discipline to obtain the kind of education they want for their students.
A Portland-area mother named Lisa recently told me, “I wish that the education system could understand that not every child fits into the same sized box, and everyone needs to do what is right for their family.” I witness the lengths to which parents like Lisa go to choose the school they think is best for their kids. The Empowerment Scholarship Accounts in this legislation would empower parents like Lisa to make life-changing choices on behalf of their children’s education, just when they need it the most. I encourage you to support the Education Equity Emergency Bill. Thank you very much.
