OPPORTUNITY SOCIETY (via mc):

Voucher Holders Shop Schools: Eager Parents and Children Pack Fair in First Step to Choice (Jay Mathews, June 23, 2004, Washington Post)

The doors of the former YMCA building on 12th Street NW were not supposed to open until 6:30 p.m. Monday, but Erica Shorter arrived an hour early, joining a line that soon stretched half a block to T Street.

Once she got inside, she rushed to a small table in the corner of the light-green gymnasium. Grabbing a pen, she signed up her two children for the St. Francis de Sales School on Rhode Island Avenue NE.

Shorter, 33, could not have afforded the Catholic school's tuition in the past. But her children were among 1,249 low-income students selected last week to receive the District's first tax-funded private-school vouchers, and she wanted them to be first on the school's list.

The public schools in Southeast Washington that her children have attended have low scores and limited programs, she said, "and I want them to be able to get all kinds of learning."

Shorter and the families of more than 500 other voucher recipients jammed into the small building, now called the Thurgood Marshall Center Trust, Monday evening and yesterday afternoon to visit tables staffed by representatives of 44 private D.C. schools that have agreed to participate in the program. [...]

Once she had time to read the scholarship fund's materials, Shorter realized that she had much more to do. She would need to complete an application form and provide her children's last report cards, test scores, birth certificates, Social Security numbers and immunization records.

All that, Shorter said, is fine with her. "It is such a great opportunity," she said.

This opportunity brought to you courtesy of the racist Republicans who hate the poor.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 27, 2004 4:29 PM