I would really like to see that changed in my community. It’s one rubber stamp after another where I live and it’s getting old.

As described by Wisconsin State Representative Annette Polly Williams, who led the ten-year voucher battle in Milwaukee, “We were putting power in the hands of low-income parents to make sure they really did benefit. This entire parental choice struggle is about who can control the educational dollars.”

Sweden, among the most “progressive” of nations, instituted parental choice in education in 1992. They now have improvement and increased satisfaction in both private and public schools, without the predictions of doom coming to pass!

Free enterprise is the engine of a free society. Just as it is essential in driving a successful economy, so too with education. Our nation came to recognize the importance of equal opportunity in housing, employment and public accommodations, and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We need to sponsor and pass the Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity. This would mandate equitable funding for children in non-public schools, while respecting the liberty of schools in hiring and provision of services. In accordance with the 10th Amendment, educational standards and means of funding would be left to the states.

Support for this measure is building at the grass roots level. As recently reported by Evelyn B. Stacey of the Pacific Research Institute, “Forty-four years after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a new rights movement is gathering steam as ethnic groups are increasingly joining forces to press for school choice.”

Implementation of this legislation would surely bring innovative advancements in education by force of competition and substantially reduce bureaucratic waste.