SAN ANTONIO • More than 5,000 students and parents from across the state brought their desire for school choice to the Texas Capitol on Feb. 7. Nationally-known education leaders and John Stoessel, host of ABC’s “20/20,” addressed the rally and urged participants to speak directly to legislators about the growing need for school choice in Texas.

    Organized by Texas for School Choice, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options (Hispanic CREO), Agudath Israel, the Black Alliance for Educational Options and the Texas Catholic Conference, as well as other organizations, rally participants gathered on the South steps of the Capitol before taking the message to legislators.

    The archdiocese declared Feb. 7 as School Choice Day and urged parents, students, other interested individuals, Catholic schools and parents to become involved in the issue. The archdiocese also called upon families, groups and individuals to attend the Education Freedom Rally and demonstrate to their elected representatives their commitment to school choice and their desire to strengthen the Texas educational system.

    Among those attending from San Antonio were Sister Carla Marie Lusch, SSND, superintendent of Catholic schools; Debbie Bell, associate superintendent; Ramon A. Guerra, director of federal programs; Brother Stanley Culotta, CSC, archdiocesan coordinator of School Choice and president of Holy Cross of San Antonio; John Bacon, Parent-Teacher Federation president; Msgr. Dermot Brosnan from St. Peter-St. Joseph Children’s Home; and parents and students from Holy Cross of San Antonio, Blessed Sacrament School, St. Leo the Great School, and others from throughout the area.

    “Catholic schools have been successfully serving communities all across the state of Texas for more than 100 years, offering a quality education to families from a wide spectrum of ethnic, regional and economic backgrounds, as well as faith traditions,” according to a press release from the archdiocese.

    “Today, unfortunately, there are too many communities in our state where parents are limited, often due to economic reasons, in the educational choices available to them. In order to help these families, we believe a legislatively enacted school choice system would help to provide parents with the access to educational opportunities and resources needed so that each child can fully develop his or her potential.”

    The archdiocese stated that it joins other leaders in faith in calling upon legislators to adopt a broad system of education choice.
    “Tragically high school dropout rates in our largest cities have made desperate the concerns of low-income Texas parents who want education options,” said Robert Aguirre of Hispanic CREO. “We are not blaming the public school system so much as saying that one size clearly does not fit all. School choice programs have been shown to drive down public school system dropout rates and it can work here in Texas,” he added. Hispanic CREO’s mission is to improve educational outcomes for Hispanic children by empowering families through parental choice in education. It is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

    Featured speakers at the rally included Dr. Howard Fuller, former superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools; Rebeca Nieves Huffman, president of the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options; Bishop Gregory Aymond of Austin; Dr. Raymond Bryant of San Antonio; Rev. Eleazar Rodriguez Jr. of Houston and Rabbi Aryeh Feigenbaum of Dallas. Several parents also addressed the gathering. “We have a growing problem in our largest cities and school choice can help,” said Ken Hoagland of Texans for School Choice. “Proposed legislation will increase per-student funding at public schools while also giving low- and moderate-income parents the right to use their own tax dollars to help their own children escape schools that just don’t work for them,” said Hoagland.