Opportunity and Hope

Transforming Children's Lives through Scholarships

By (author) Naomi Schaefer Riley

Not available to order

Publication date:

01 May 2014

Length of book:

156 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442226104

The U.S. education system is not meeting the needs of all our children, especially those who are economically disadvantaged. For too many families, income level and ZIP code determine the quality of education available to their children. The need to give all children access to a good education, a chance for a better future, has never been greater. Launched in 1998 by philanthropists Ted Forstmann and John Walton, the Children’s Scholarship Fund has offered thousands of low-income children across the country the chance to attend private school, children who would have otherwise never experienced the benefits of a private education.

In
Opportunity and Hope, prominent journalist Naomi Schaefer Riley chronicles the lives of 10 scholarship alumni who—because of the educational opportunities afforded them—were able to turn less than perfect childhood circumstances into successful lives and careers. The stories of these children, representative of thousands of others and their families, are nothing less than inspirational. They are proof that all any of America’s children need to achieve their dreams is a chance, and someone to believe in them. They are also a testament to the power of private schools, including many inner-city faith-based schools, and they are evidence that given the chance for the right kind of education, anyone can achieve the American dream.
John [Walton] and I always believed that education should be a non-partisan issue and that for our country to maintain a global leadership position, our educational system had to improve. Our thought was that if the money followed the child through an open educational choice system, parents and students would make choices that benefited them, and that vast improvements would take place. As an experiment to prove this, John, along with Teddy Forstmann, founded the Children’s Scholarship Fund. They wanted to find out if parents were allowed to choose the school that their children could attend, would they really care, would they make good decisions, would outcomes change? As you will find in reading this book, yes, parents care, and outcomes change in a very positive manner. All parents should have a choice of educational options, and our children should have an equal opportunity to develop their skills and talents.