The District of Columbia is home to one of the nation’s most troubled public school systems. … The 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that Washington, D.C.’s fourth- and eighth-graders scored lower than any other students in the entire country. The District also has one of the lowest graduation rates in America — 59 percent according to one estimate. …

There is cause for some optimism: A growing number of District children are benefiting from the opportunity to attend a school of their parents’ choice. … More than 20,000 children — about a quarter of the city’s public school students — now attend one of D.C.’s 72 public charter schools. More than 1,900 children are attending private schools using tuition scholarships through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program during the 2007-2008 school year. But many more children could benefit from the opportunity to attend a school of their parents’ choice.

What Congress and local policymakers should do: … 1. Strengthen and expand the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. … 2. Offer scholarships for students with special needs. … 3. Offer scholarships to foster children and homeless children. … 4. Offer District taxpayers tuition and/or scholarship tax credits. … 5. Offer District taxpayers tax incentives for contributions to education savings accounts. … 6. Offer tutoring and summer school scholarships.

Read more at heritage.org/Research/Education/bg2137.cfm