Alexander Commemorates School Choice Week 2017

WASHINGTON, January 24 – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement commemorating National School Choice Week 2017:

“The real answer to inequality in America is giving more children more opportunities to attend a better school. Since the GI Bill for Kids in 1992, there’s been growing support in Congress for this idea, and nearly 3 in 4 Americans support school choice, according to a 2013 Luntz Global Public Opinion Survey. I look forward to commemorating this important week for our nation’s children and, with the Trump administration and Betsy DeVos, once confirmed, working to give low-income parents more choices of schools that wealthy Americans have.”

As senator, Alexander introduced the Scholarships for Kids Act in 2014, which would allow states to create $2,100 scholarships from existing federal education dollars to follow 11 million low-income children to any public or private school of their parents’ choice. He is also an original cosponsor of the Choice Act, legislation proposed by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C) in 2015 to allow 11 billion other dollars the federal government now spends through the program for children with disabilities to follow those 6 million children to the schools their parents believe provide the best services.

The full text of the resolution naming the week of Jan. 22 through Jan. 28, 2017 as “National School Choice Week,” offered by Scott and cosponsored by Alexander, can be found here.

###