This week marks the second annual National School Choice Week. This observance is a great time to celebrate the opportunities and achievements available through school choice. But if you’re not sure what all the excitement is about, here’s a bit of background on the issue.

Dictionary.com defines school choice as “noun - an educational policy based on vouchers or scholarships, allowing students their choice of private or public school.”

While that’s school choice in a nutshell, this exciting educational policy deserves a bit more explanation. Here’s how Parents for Choice in Education defines school choice:

“School choice can be best defined as empowering parents to select the educational environment they feel is best for their child.  In other words, school choice is parental choice.

“Some families are already able to exercise school choice simply because they have the resources to move to the neighborhood of their choice or to pay private school tuition.  Families that do not have these same resources can only exercise choice through the use of different school choice tools, such as vouchers and tuition tax-credits.

“The best school choice tools are programs (like vouchers or tuition tax credits) in which education funds follow the child to the school of their parents' choice, whether public or private. Other school choice tools include charter schools, open enrollment, magnet schools, virtual schools (both public and private), privately-funded scholarships, private schools, and home schooling.”

Are you more of a visual person? Try this video from Heritage: http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/video/2011/07/what-is-school-choice.

So there’s the background on school choice. Now, here is why I’m excited about school choice – because, these facts speak for themselves:

School choice results in increased competition. Increased competition results in higher standards for everyone. From the Brookings Institute: “a number of studies indicate that public schools tend to improve when they are exposed to choice and competition.”

School choice is supported by a wide swath of people. As reported by the Cato Institute: “An Education Next/Harvard PEPG survey found that even 53 percent of current and former public school employees support education tax credits and only 25 percent oppose them. And support for choice, especially education tax credits, is becoming increasingly bipartisan. Florida's donation tax-credit program became law in 2001 with the vote of a single Democratic legislator. Last year, a third of statehouse Democrats, half the black caucus and the entire Hispanic caucus voted to expand that program.”

School choice saves your tax dollars. The Common Wealth Foundation provides savings data in the millions for Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Florida because of changes in school choice policy.

Parents and students who have participated in school choice on some level are routinely happy to explain their experience and what worked for them. I had my own involvement in school choice, when, in 1993, I joined local parents and educators in my hometown to start the nation’s first K-12 charter school. Still operating today, I saw firsthand how this school is a benefit to students who needed something other than the local public school.

Do you have a school choice story? Share your experience with your friends, family and neighbors. I strongly believe during next year’s National School Choice Week, we’ll have even more to celebrate as people continue to learn about the great opportunities available through school choice.

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