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LIBRE Announces School Choice Campaign, “When Parents Choose, Students Win”

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LIBRE Announces School Choice Campaign, “When Parents Choose, Students Win”

School Choice Has Proven Best Results from Students in States That Have Embraced It  

 

(Washington D.C.) – The LIBRE Initiative launches “When Parents Choose, Students Win,” a new campaign focused on school choice advocacy in two key States: Florida and Texas.

Both states are expected to have legislation up for a vote in the months ahead. LIBRE’s campaign focused on encouraging participants to raise their voices and join our school choice efforts by signing petitions for Texas and Florida, on-line and in the field. The petitions will be shared with state elected officials in each state and used to encourage action on the issue.

The Education system is in need of meaningful reform to provide parents with the opportunity to choose a school for their child, and students with a chance at a quality Education regardless of financial resources or the neighborhood they live in.

States that have adopted school choice plans have shown the success that comes from giving parents the freedom to choose a better Education for their children. Other states are beginning to embrace the need for it, including Alabama, which recently passed school choice legislation with broad support from its community.

We’ve already seen that Hispanic students in particular, benefit from these sorts of reforms. In Florida, for example, Hispanic readers in the state outperform their fourth-grade peers by almost two full grade levels, and the state was fourth in the nation among Hispanic fourth-graders in math in 2013. This follows the trend set more than 15 years ago. In 1998, Florida students scored near the bottom of the nation in student achievement with 47 percent of fourth-grade students catalogued as functionally illiterate. A new platform premised on simple principles – holding schools accountable for results, setting high expectations, rewarding success, giving families real school choice and attracting talent into the classroom – led to outstanding results. From 1998 to 2011, Florida students’ test score gains on the National Assessment of Education al Progress (NAEP) had risen above the national average.

However, in Texas, hundreds of failing schools are impacting hundreds of thousands of students, many of which are located in Latino communities. Legislators there have an opportunity this session to empower parents and provide alternatives for those children.  

“A quality Education is key to achieving the American Dream and it lays the foundation for a thriving and more prosperous country. Across the nation, Latino families are forced to send their children to under-performing schools, making it difficult for them to graduate and earn a diploma,” said Daniel Garza, Executive Director of the LIBRE Initiative. “We want to engage Hispanics on the benefits that school choice brings to our community. I invite everyone to raise their voices by signing our petitions. Our children are counting on us for the best Education we can give them.”

For interviews with a LIBRE representative, please contact: Brian Faughnan, 703-678-4581 or Steven Cruz, 202-578-6173.