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At the National School Choice Week’s Whistle Stop tour event in Washington, DC on Wednesday, we had the amazing opportunity to hear first-hand how school choice directly benefitted the lives of three remarkable students in the DC area.

CER President Kara Kerwin introduced the students and listed their many accomplishments, and was joined by other distinguished speakers including Lisa Keegan, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Col.), famed political analyst Joe Trippi, and Jeanne Allen, CER’s founder and president emeritus.

A mere twenty years ago, advocating for families having the opportunity to choose between diverse and strong educational options was considered heresy.  Allen and Keegan spoke of this at CER’s 20^th Anniversary Conference, and reinforced it last night.

For his own part, Joe Trippi, shared his personal story of how his mother fought tooth and nail to enroll him into the neighboring and far superior public school despite not having the option, and what his educational destiny could have been simply because he lived on the wrong side of the street.

But the last aspect of the night that struck all of those in attendance was the words of Danial, a student at Friendship Public Charter School in Washington, DC.  He had already completed numerous AP tests, courses for college credit, spent time at universities, and participated in extracurricular activities.  His parents made the decision to send him to Friendship, a school of choice, so that he could have the educational opportunity to excel.

In concluding his remarks, Danial said, “Without school choice, who would I be today?”  Had his parents not had the ability to choose a better education for him, he would have assuredly ended up at an inferior traditional public school in the Southeast quadrant of DC that is, according to him, consumed with gang violence.  Simply put, his life would have been 180 degrees different without school choice.

School choice demonizes no one and helps those who are able to participate in it.  It allows students to choose their own future and to have the power to achieve.  The students at the Whistle Stop in DC are living proof of this.

By the time the evening came to a close, the audience left with a call to action and how far we still have left to go.  Allen said that the fight for quality choice in American education “doesn’t get easier, it gets harder and gets more important every day.” Large portions of parents still do not have the power they need over their children’s education, or the greatest information available to make those important choices.

Hopefully, more students will be able to deliver testimonials as to how having power and options changed their lives for the better.