Jeanne Allen: Opportunity Knocks Once Again for DC Kids

Congress restores and expands school choice for District's families

WASHINGTON, April 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Jeanne Allen, President of the Center for Education Reform, released the following statement today as President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 1473, a budget resolution that, in addition to funding the federal government through 2011, restores and expands the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program:

"The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program has provided thousands of DC children with the chance to find educational success, and their families with the opportunity to choose the best school possible for their children.

"Since 2004, school choice in our nation's capital has raised student achievement, catapulted the graduation rates of participants, and eased the minds of parents and kids who know that the schools to which they are zoned by virtue of their zip code alone are not working in their best interests.

"That thousands more DC students will join the ranks of Opportunity Scholars and benefit from scholarships that allow them to forgo their failing neighborhood schools is a tremendous victory for the District. That it required so much resolve and maneuvering to make this a reality is a sad reflection of the President's stubborn refusal to follow his own advice and use only one test when deciding to support an idea with precious tax dollars: whether it works."

For more information about The Center for Education Reform, visit http://edreform.com.

The Center for Education Reform drives the creation of better educational opportunities for all children. CER changes laws, minds and cultures to allow good schools to flourish.

SOURCE Center for Education Reform