How Members of Congress Practice School Choice

The Heritage Foundation ^ | September 3, 2003 | Krista Kafer and Jonathan Butcher

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Members of Congress will soon have the opportunity to approve legislation that will grant low-income families in the District of Columbia the chance to choose where their children attend school. If every Member of Congress who uses private schools votes to give disadvantaged D.C. families the same access, the legislation will pass. In the past three years, every piece of parental choice legislation would have passed if those who exercised choice in their own families had voted with supporters of school choice.

Earlier this year, The Heritage Foundation conducted a survey of Members of Congress on school choice. Of those who responded to the survey, 41 percent of U.S. Representatives and 46 percent of U.S. Senators send or have sent at least one of their children to a private school.1 In the general population, only about 10 percent of students attend private schools. Heritage Foundation surveys of Congress conducted in 2001 and 2000 yielded similar results.2

Despite the popularity of private schools among Members of Congress, however, many of the same policymakers who exercise choice in their own children's education have voted to block legislation that would have given other families the same range of options. For example, if every member of the House who practices school choice had voted to grant similar options for families with disabled children, Amendment 90 would have passed. Amendment 90 to the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (H.R. 1350) was a modest proposal by Representative Jim DeMint (R-SC) to give states the flexibility to establish innovative parental choice programs for students with disabilities. (See Table 1.) The proposal was defeated by a vote of 182 to 240 on April 30, 2003. The Senate has not voted on parental choice legislation this term.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

I excerpted this, because of the tables included.