The Power of Parental School Choice

Parental school choice is the authority that parents exercise in making decisions about where their children will attend school, perhaps by moving to neighborhoods with strong public schools or by sending their children to charter or private schools.  State voucher and tax credit programs can extend the opportunity for a high-quality education to many children to whom such an opportunity would otherwise be denied. Since the first school voucher program began in Wisconsin two decades ago, other states have taken up the effort to give all parents a choice in their children's education.

The Catholic Church has always affirmed the role of parents as the primary educators of their children, and that, “Parents have the right to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own personal convictions” (CCC #2229), and that “parental rights are natural and inalienable and should not be limited to the economically privileged.” (Principles for Educational Reform in the United States, 1995)

NDAA exists as a reponse to the U.S. bishops' call, “to strive towards the goal of making Catholic elementary schools available, accessible, and affordable to all Catholic parents and children.” (Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Schools in the Third Millennium, 2005)

ACE recognizes that public-private partnerships, like vouchers and scholarship tax credit programs, will greatly expand the capacity of urban Catholic schools to sustain educational excellence, especially in low-income communities. Notre Dame ACE Academies will be established in geographic areas where legislation supports families who choose to educate their children in Catholic schools via tax credit or direct scholarship programs. In this way, the Notre Dame ACE Academy model encourages support for these programs, which the bishops have long argued “will help parents to fulfill their responsibility in educating their children” (Renewing our Commitment).