Richard A. Sokerka
During his campaign, Donald Trump said he would make school choice a priority in his administration. So it was significant that when President Trump chose to make his first visit to a school as our nation’s leader, it was to a Catholic school — St. Andrew School in Florida. There March 3, he and Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education who is a proponent of school choice, visited classrooms, and meet with parents, teachers and administrators.
In his address to Congress earlier last week, President Trump called education “the civil rights issue of our time.” He asked Congress to pass legislation that would fund school choice for disadvantaged youth, including minority children. In the audience was Denisha Merriweather, who used Florida’s school voucher program to attend a private high school that she credits with turning her life around. Some of the students at St. Andrew’s, whose mission is to “develop students’ spirituality and creativity in order to be disciples of Christ in the 21st century,” are able to attend the school through that same voucher program. Poor families are able to send their children to St. Andrew’s because of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which since 2002, has provided tax incentives to businesses that fund parochial and private schools. At the present time, more than 90,000 students from poor families in the state are able to attend the parochial and private schools of their choice.
For the President, within his first 100 days in office, to visit a Catholic school is a clear signal to the nation that he has placed school choice in the forefront of his administration’s priorities and it points to him living up to his campaign promise. As press secretary Sean Spicer said, “President Trump is determined to provide choice for every parent and opportunities for every child, regardless of their zip code.”
That is good news for all parochial and private schools, but even better news for parents who should have the right to select the school that will give their children the best education possible so that our next generation will be a success in any field of endeavor they so choose.