Imagine that you are a young parent. You’re 28 years old. You have four young children. You didn’t finish high school, but you work hard and provide your family with a stable home and lots of love.
Your children are bright and curious, and you dream of giving them a first-class education. But your neighborhood public school has a dropout rate of 30%. Most kids don’t read on grade level. Almost none attend college. Personal tutors and private schools are far beyond your means.
You have no power to leave. You have no ability to choose. You’re stuck.
Meet Emilia Melendez. A mother of four from Milwaukee.
Meet the Griffins. A family of seven from Merrillville, Ind., about 50 miles southeast of Chicago. Like Emilia, the Griffins were stuck, scared and powerless.
Today, both families send their children to elite private schools. Both families expect their children to attend top universities and go on to successful professional careers.
Their dreams, and the dreams of their children, are becoming reality thanks to Indiana and Milwaukee’s school voucher systems.
I spent several weeks filming the Griffin and Melendez families.
I saw firsthand the empowerment they not only feel, but exercise daily.
For them, education reform isn’t a concept or a nice idea. It isn’t about policy or politics. It’s about giving their children a chance at a better life.
If Emilia or the Griffins lived in Illinois, none of this would be possible.
Illinois politicians have not yet been convinced that parents deserve the ability to choose the school that best suits their child’s needs and goals.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Illinois could have access to a more dynamic education and more fulfilling lives if we gave their parents the power to choose.
For poor and working parents in Wisconsin and Indiana, education and opportunity are no longer the hopeless struggles they once were.
Can we make the dreams of children in Illinois a reality as well?
Charlie Fritschner is a video specialist at the Illinois Policy Institute
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