A good primary and secondary education is the cornerstone of the American Dream: it prepares us for economic and personal success and facilitates our pursuit of happiness.

But too often the history of America’s public school system has been a story of dashed hopes, deferred dreams, and unfulfilled promises. Hopes of parents—that the local school system would prepare their kids to climb higher than they ever could. Dreams of students—that their teachers would inspire and believe in them. And promises of policymakers—that more money would fix a fundamentally broken system.

Millions of low-income families who are stuck in underperforming schools have no way out and no way to choose something better.

These families are not just let down by our nation’s dysfunctional education policy—they are trapped by it.

Providing a solid education for the next generation is, as Abraham Lincoln once wrote, “the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.”

Policymakers should aim, as he did, “to see the time when education, and by its means, morality, society, enterprise and industry, shall become much more general than at present.”

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