SAMPLE LETTER ONEDear Representative or Senator (of course name individually), As an administrator of a Christian School that is located within your district, I am very aware of the realities of private education and in a broader sense education in general. Please hear me and the families of our school as together we urge you to:1. Listen to the needs of the portion of your constituents who are asking you for help to be able to overcome significant financial obstacles to be able to send children to the schools of their choice. Regularly students must choose to leave our school because of an inability to pay tuition and make ends meet in their home. Each year we have to raise over 350,000 of financial aid to help families attend our school, and it is practically impossible for us to do that. In fact, we have fallen short of that goal every year in the last few years with the economic downturn. It should be that all of our families should have the ability to choose a school that fits their family without having significant financial hurdles to overcome. We are not a school for the wealthy. This is true not only in our school, but in many of the others that serve your constituency as well.2. Work actively to promote School Choice legislation that moves PA forward as a leader in school reform. We are thankful for the Educational Improvement Tax Credit, and an increase in that program is an essential step in helping families to connect to the school of their choice, but it is not enough.3. Work to include a significant voucher program in our state that will allow the poorest families to choose a school of their choice, and will allow more EITC monies to be freed up to be utilized by middle class working families.4. Provide our families in our poorest performing schools with help. But please remember our families in better performing public schools that want to chose a school based on strong values that reflect their family beliefs. Please work to implement a program that is as far reaching as is possible.5. Please examine the arguments carefully of the many proponents who decry vouchers and school choice as the end of public education and public schools. First, examine the research that exists about the movement of families when school choice is in place. There is no indication that the public schools system will be abandoned by the masses. Remember that the private school movement is a part of public education (not public schools). As you know in PA approximately 16% of the population is educated by private schools. The resources provided to help that process are not significantly provided by the state to do that. Competition and parent choice bring accountability. When our schools don’t perform, they cease to exist. When public schools don’t perform, we provide them more resources.6. Work together cooperatively with leadership of the House, Senate and Administration toget school choice advanced in the legislature. Help us to do the job that a significant portion of the families of the Commonwealth want us to do, provide a mission based, quality education that they can afford to chose if they desire.Please let us know how I can help you in this important process. I urge you to view our website at www.acsipa.org where there is a significant amount of information that relates to these issues. In particular, please review the compiled testimony of many of our School Administrators and Leaders who testified before the House Public Policy Hearings on School Choice around the State over the years at www.acsipa.org/housetestimonies/total.pdf .In addition, please understand that we are committed to keeping our constituency informed, and we are also committed to providing you with the support you need to help get this done.On behalf of the families of our school, we are praying for you in these difficult but opportune times as you help to lead our State forward, SAMPLE LETTER TWODear Representative ______, I want to thank you for your support of the EITC Program, and I certainly appreciate the difficult work that is having to be done on the budget this year. It doesn’t go unnoticed! However, my reason for writing is to ask you to actively support School Choice this year in the Legislative Process.1. Please urge Leadership to bring School Choice to the table this year.2. Personally endorse this important and critical legislation.3. Recognize how important this type of legislation that brings by adding vouchers as well as EITC to the puzzle is to overall school reform in the Commonwealth, and to your constituant schools and families.4. Read the attached testimonies for Christian Schools from all across the state that address the concerns and critisms of school choice and let me know if you need additional information. In any case, I recognize the political realities of this issue. However, just from a practical standpoint there are two realities that I believe with all of my heart within the context of where education in PA is right now. I think most of the schools in your district feel the same. 1. If significant Voucher and EITC legislation were passed: It would allow schools like ours and many others in your district to provide educational opportunities to more families through EITC and the voucher program if we serve students in a failing district. There would still be unknowns, and it is not a panacea for all issues, but it would allow a creative school like ours and many others to have more resources to leverage to provide education to everyone. 2. Regardless of the opportunity that this makes available to families, we still think a small percentage of families will transfer to other schools. Many people think the 3-5% transfer number is a good one. There are many who have the resources who believe strongly in their public schools, and wouldn’t leave even if it cost them nothing! Even in the difficult issues of Milwaukee where there is 17% over 20 years... that is no death nail to public education or their budgets, but it will require them to compete effectively. It will cause private schools to step up greatly as well. Those are great things in terms of educational reform and opportunity! Public schools always benefit when there is school choice! I wanted to make sure you know how passionate both I and the parents at our school are about this issue. Let me know when and if you want to get together to talk more about this. I also want to get to you some testimonies from our Administrators that relate to school choice. They do address many of the on the ground issues that are of concerns in terms of how they play out daily in the lives of the private school communities that are serving as Christian schools.If there are things that I can do to be helpful to you, please let me know. xyz administratorAddress, phone, email
A Network for PA Christian Schools advocating Christian Education in Pennsylvania