New York Assemblyman Marcos Crespo is the latest example of an influential Democrat offering full-throated support for school choice, including options such as tax credit scholarships.

At a press conference in Miami last week, Crespo pointed to Florida’s tax credit scholarship program, the nation’s largest private school program, as giving New York a “playbook for something that works.” (The program is administered by nonprofits such as Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog.)

Crespo repeatedly referred to Miami scholarship student Valentin Mendez, who preceded him at the press conference. He also referenced the Catholic school education that helped shape U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Like Crespo, Sotomayor hails from the Bronx. Her success wouldn’t have been possible without the school, and without her mother’s sacrifice in paying tuition, Crespo said. “Us in government,” he continued, “have a responsibility to create more opportunities for more Justice Sonia Sotomayors.”

Here are Crespo’s remarks in full, edited slightly for length and clarity.

I want to thank you and CREO for bringing us all together on this important conversation. It’s hard to follow Sen. Sandoval and Valentin and his testimony. But I’ll share with you what’s happening in New York.

I represent the community in the southeast section of the Bronx that has been known for far too long for all the social ills associated with urban communities and low-income communities. We have talked for years that education is our priority. We have talked about fixing a broken system that continues to fail to graduate and prepare enough students in our community, particularly minority children, Hispanic children, low-income community children. We’ve talked about the fact that 80 percent of the kids graduating from our school system, when they go to college, they need remedial courses because they’re not prepared for the academics they’re going to confront there. Think about that.

We talk about the economy of the state, and whatever state you’re in, whether New York or Illinois or Florida or wherever you are in this country, you’re not competing with just your own local community businesses. You’re competing in a global market. We talk about the failure of this country to be competitive with other superpowers around the world, and we have that conversation but we don’t do anything about it or enough about it.

I’m here today, and I’m here with friends who are Republicans and Democrats because as the senator said, this isn’t a partisan issue. The issue of education is a moral issue. It’s a rights issue. And it is an issue of opportunity and growth that is going to keep this country to be the great country that it’s been. We cannot do that without preparing the next generation. We cannot achieve that without empowering our young people to be the leaders of tomorrow. We say that far too often as a punchline and not as a real goal, and as a commitment for anyone regardless of what label you use to describe yourself and your politics.

I don’t know that an elected official, or a bureaucrat working at a state education agency anywhere in this country, can know better what’s best for Valentin than his mom who spoke here earlier. No one can tell her what’s best for her son.

In every state in this country, we talk about diversity. We talk about the strength of our diverse communities, we talk about the diversity of faith, of cultures and languages that make the United States what it is, certainly New York what it is. But then we don’t translate that very concept into the way in which we provide opportunities. Ladies and gentlemen, one size doesn’t fit all. (more…)

Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court justice, might never have blossomed in the Bronx without the help of a faith-based school, a Catholic oasis called Blessed Sacrament. Sotomayor herself says so. Asked by Anderson Cooper if she would have become who she is without the school, Sotomayor said, “Doubtful.”

Sadly, Blessed Sacrament is closing this year, felled by the same social and economic forces – and education policies - that contributed to the shuttering of 1,300 Catholic schools in the past 20 years. There is tragedy and irony in its passing. You don’t have to be religious to feel it.

For most of this country’s history, faith-based schools have been a fundamental part of the American experience. But now, as the nation continues to wrestle with how best to get academic traction with poor and minority kids, its 21,000 religious schools continue to shrink, and continue to be mostly overlooked as a potential piece of the solution.

Here’s the tragic part. Eleven of 12 gold standard research studies find positive academic outcomes for students using vouchers to attend private schools, the vast majority of them religious schools. More recently, William Jeynes, a researcher at California State University, Long Beach, found via a meta-analysis of 90 studies that students in religious schools were on average seven months ahead of their peers in traditional public and charter schools. This was after controlling for race, gender, poverty and parental involvement.

Faith-based schools are a financial bargain, too – for all of us. Average tuition is thousands of dollars less than per-pupil funding for public schools, so collectively, taxpayers are saving tens of billions of dollars a year.

All this isn’t to say faith-based schools are the end-all, be-all. They range in quality just as charter and virtual and traditional public schools do. But in this era of customization, they offer more options, and in this time of desperation, more hands on deck. There is no good reason to bar them from the mix of educational alternatives that is helping parents and educators find the best fit for each and every child. (more…)

“I am heartbroken,” was Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s response upon hearing that her Catholic alma mater, Blessed Sacrament School in the Bronx, would be among the 24 latest Catholic schools to close in an impoverished area. She continued in her New York Times interview to describe it as “symbolic of what it means for all our families, like my mother, who were dirt poor … It was a road of opportunity for kids with no other alternative.”

In this country, we unquestionably have a shortage of quality schools, particularly those that serve urban poor families. So why do we continue to watch as hundreds of quality faith-based schools close because the financial deck is stacked against them?

Families would eagerly choose them. They have served their communities for decades. They’ve been effective. As Sotomayor noted, their dropout rates are lower and their college attendance rates are higher than comparable public schools, not to mention the significant output of distinguished civic and corporate leaders. U.S. government surveys show parents are consistently highly satisfied with them – at even higher rates than parents in chosen public schools.

The continuing closure of nearly all types of faith-based schools is a disturbing trend. And raising awareness with the public and policymakers about it is why the American Center for School Choice launched its Commission on Faith-based Schools. At its second meeting, recently held in Jacksonville, Fla., this ecumenical group with representation across the spectrum of faith-based communities decided to organize a national conference in Austin, Texas in the May/June time frame. It will focus on the peril these schools face, and draw attention to how much will be lost in American education if families who wish to choose faith-based schools cannot continue to do so. The target audience will be religious leaders, media, the research community, and legislators and staff.

In the past two years, impressive progress has been made in expanding school choice to include these schools. We now have 32 private school choice programs in 16 states and Washington, D.C., with the enactment of five new programs and the expansion of six existing ones in 2012.

The commission believes that with a focused effort and call to action, these programs can and need to grow at a faster rate to preserve the opportunities faith-based schools bring to urban communities in particular. (more…)

From Richard Garnett, Associate Dean and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School, writing in Public Discourse:

The editors of the New York Times probably didn’t intend to lend their support to National School Choice Week (January 27-February 2). Last week, at thousands of events and in a rich variety of ways, teachers, parents, students, and advocates across the country raised awareness, educated neighbors, challenged leaders, and brought hope. And, in a recent article prompted by the release of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir, “For Sotomayor, Bronx School’s Closing Prompts Heartache—and Memories,” the Times underscored—again, probably by accident—the importance of what is at stake.

Blessed Sacrament School in the Bronx, which Justice Sotomayor attended for eight years, is set to close, as are twenty-four more Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York. “We’re not closing them because they’re inferior,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan observed. “They are excellent, first-rate schools. They’re just struggling with enrollment and finances, and that makes the decision all the more painful.”

This hard decision, and many like it in other cities, should be “painful” for all of us. Since the year 2000, about 2,000 Catholic schools have closed or consolidated, and the number of children attending Catholic schools has dropped by more than 600,000. This is—as Justice Sotomayor put it, describing the loss of Blessed Sacrament School—“heartbreaking.”

“You know how important those eight years were?” she asks. “It’s symbolic of what it means for all our families, like my mother, who were dirt-poor. She watched what happened to my cousins in public school and worried if we went there, we might not get out. So she scrimped and saved. It was a road of opportunity for kids with no other alternative.” Continue reading here.