The WSJ has an inspirational editorial that shows why we need to have school choice.

At 16 years old, Rontrell Matthews has a better idea than most of his peers what an education is worth. This past summer, he made his way through this rural, poor community not far outside of Charleston to show up at the doorstep of Capers Preparatory Christian Academy. In his hand was his first paycheck, a meager sum of $32.86 that he’d earned making sandwiches at the local Subway shop. Spurring him along was a determination to buy his own way out of one of the state’s many failing public schools.

…

Founded in 2003 by Faye Brown, a 55-year-old retired public school teacher, Capers is one of a handful of “independent schools” that serve the state’s rural poor. It operates out of rented office space, has a total of 42 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and makes do on an annual budget of about $160,000 a year. Nearly all of its equipment–desks, books and the eight iMacs in its computer lab–were donated to the school.

The teachers who aren’t volunteers make $8 an hour with no fringe benefits. Many of the kids show up without lunch. Often parents fail to make their monthly tuition bills. Only five students at the school come from two-parent homes, and most of the students are African-American. Each year, Ms. Brown is forced to dip into her retirement account to keep the school running. “It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul,” she told me. “I’ll let the power bill go until they’re about to shut off the lights and then I’m rushing down there with the money.”

One place Capers isn’t skimping, however, is academics. The school places a heavy emphasis on reading, writing and math. As a result the school’s average SAT score, 1150, is 164 points above the state average, and this year the school expects every one of its graduates to go on to college. St. Johns High School, the public school these students would be attending if not for Capers, has an average SAT score of 788.

Read the rest for yourself.

You can’t honestly say that you would prefer for Rontrell, or any other children, to attend the miserable government school they are zoned to.  Competition gives consumers, students in this case, the opportunity to seek out better value.  The long term result is a better product for all involved as businesses work to meet the demands of the consumers.  We need to enact a school choice program here in Alabama to give kids and parents the power to choose to succeed.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 5:49 am and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.