Welcome to School Choice Week 2017

January 23, 2017 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

This is the sixth consecutive year that PLF is happy to celebrate School Choice Week with our friends across the country. School choice embodies the simple proposition that parents know the best school for their children. By injecting choice and competition into the traditional public school monopoly, parents, students, teachers, schools, and taxpayers are better off.

National School Choice Week is a wonderful thing. Hundreds of events are planned throughout the country that highlight the value of school choice. [You can find an event near you by going here.] Choice advocates believe that evidence and justice are on our side. Accordingly, by simply raising awareness about school choice, we find converts, and we come closer to the day when each student in the nation will have a choice in where she goes to school.

Over the past year, PLF has increased its efforts to give parents and students choice in education. For example, we represent Kathy and Jerry Armstrong and the Association of Christian Schools International in a lawsuit challenging a Montana regulation that killed school choice in that state. Our lawsuit is currently awaiting a hearing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. We also represent Edmund Lee in a lawsuit challenging a St. Louis policy that denies African-American children the same choice opportunities as white children.  Over the past year, we have also been involved in school choice lawsuits in California, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Colorado, and Florida. Indeed, just last week the Florida Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a teachers’ union lawsuit that would have rolled back school choice for hundreds of thousands of Florida students.

Over the course of the week, we will be highlighting PLF’s work on school choice. Be sure to check our blog everyday.  I’ll also be recording a podcast later in the week. We also urge you to check out National School Choice Week, to see how you can get involved. The sooner everyone knows about the virtues of school choice, the sooner that day comes where every American child has the opportunity for a quality education.