In the nation’s capital – which is often known for political divisions – a group of national and community leaders, along with school officials, students and parents, came together at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 29, 2025 for a reception celebrating the 20th anniversary of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
The first federally funded school vouchers program, known as OSP, was approved in legislation passed by Congress in 2004 and signed into law by President George W. Bush. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program awards need-based annual scholarships to eligible District children to attend a participating private D.C. elementary, middle or high school of their parents’ choice.
Two U.S. senators and key supporters of the scholarship program – Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) were among the speakers at the reception. Scott noted that he and Johnson were primary sponsors for the reauthorization of OSP, joined by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
“One thing you can say about the success of OSP, it brings people together here in Congress,” Scott said. “When you purge the issue from politics, you’re left with the greatest resource in American history – our children. What do you want for every single child in every single zip code? The chance to achieve their dreams. I can’t think of a better example of giving kids the opportunity to achieve their dreams, than the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships.”
The South Carolina senator then pointed out the success of the scholarship program, noting that “95 percent of the students graduate, 96 percent of parents say ‘yes,’ they’re satisfied, and 91 percent go on to college. With that kind of success, the only unanswered question I have is why can’t we do this all across the country, and the answer is we can, and we should and we will. I believe that this (school choice) is an issue that unites America. Our country desperately needs to be united, and this is the issue that does it.”
Sen. Johnson also praised the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, saying “It’s all about opportunity, something we all share as Americans. We all want equal opportunity, particularly for our children.”
The Wisconsin senator emphasized the need for legislation that would provide permanent reauthorization for the scholarship program. “We have to redouble and triple our efforts to try to win the hearts and minds of those who oppose this effort,” he said.
The anniversary reception was held during Catholic Schools Week and National School Choice Week, and the event was sponsored by the American Federation for Children, the Institute for Justice, the Heritage Foundation and the Defense of Freedom Institute.
Also on Jan. 29, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Expanding educational freedom and opportunity for families.” In that order, the president charged that the nation’s public school system is failing “a large segment of society,” and he noted how “more than a dozen states have enacted universal K-12 scholarship programs, allowing families – rather than the government – to choose the best educational setting for their children.”
In that executive order, the president said that within 60 days, “the Secretary of Education shall issue guidance regarding how states can use federal formula funds to support K-12 educational choice initiatives.”
Since the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program’s inception in 2004, nearly 12,000 students in the nation’s capital have been awarded OSP scholarships. In August 2024, Serving Our Children, the organization that administers the program, reported that the average annual income for families receiving the scholarships was $24,016. Seventy-eight percent of students receiving the scholarship were African American/Black, and 16 percent of scholarship recipients were Hispanic and/or Latino.
For the 2024-25 school year, OSP scholarship awards are up to $15,000 for high school and up to $10,000 for elementary and middle school. About 1,400 students are receiving the scholarships this school year in 37 participating schools in Washington, D.C.
All 18 Catholic schools in the nation’s capital participate in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, including Archbishop Carroll High School, Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, Gonzaga College High School, St. Anselm’s Abbey School, St. John’s College High School, Annunciation Catholic School, Blessed Sacrament School, Holy Trinity School, Our Lady of Victory School, Sacred Heart School, St. Anthony Catholic School, St. Augustine Catholic School, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Academy, St. Peter School on Capitol Hill, St. Thomas More Catholic Academy, San Miguel School, the Washington Jesuit Academy, and the Washington School for Girls.
Three of the speakers at the reception – Anthony Williams, the former mayor of Washington, D.C.; John Boehner, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; and Cardinal Wilton Gregory, now the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Washington – spoke about how attending Catholic school impacted their lives and helped foster their support for the scholarship program.
Reflecting on how he rose from humble roots to became the mayor of the nation’s capital, Williams said, “The cornerstone was education… I had a good education, a good set of structured values, at little Holy Name School” in Los Angeles.
As D.C.’s mayor, Williams played a key role in advocating for the program’s adoption in 2004, along with Kevin Chavous, then a member of the Council of the District of Columbia who also spoke at the anniversary reception. Williams said they supported the program “to make opportunities for all of our families, just like they were for people like me.”
That point was echoed by Boehner, who said, “I grew up going to a small Catholic school in Cincinnati, the second oldest of 12 in my family. In the ‘80s and ‘90s when I was a legislator and a congressman, I was always a big believer in school choice, because I thought that it worked.”
In 2001, Boehner was invited to a picnic in a park near the U.S. Capitol, attended by mothers and grandmothers, and he was invited to draw the names of families who would receive a scholarship for their children. That experience, he said, sparked “a burning ember in me that believes every child deserves a chance at a decent education, every child.”
Boehner, who served as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015, recalled a budget battle with then-President Obama. He said he told the president “there’s not going to be a funding bill, nothing’s going to happen, until you say you’re going to renew this.” The scholarship program was ultimately reauthorized.
The former congressional leader noted that, “When you look at the challenges that America faces, that the world faces, there are many, but there’s one way to solve all the problems, and that is to give every single kid the chance at a better education. The better they’re educated, the better voters they are, the better citizens they are, and they’ll make America really great again.”
At the anniversary reception, Cardinal Gregory described the educational opportunity he had that changed his life. “When I was a youngster growing up in a humble home in the 1950s in Chicago, I was given an educational opportunity that would change my life forever and make it possible for me to realize my potential and be where I am, and who I am today. I was not Catholic then, but I was, nevertheless, given the chance to attend a simple and wonderful Catholic school on the South Side of Chicago called St. Carthage School.”
“That experience had a profound impact on me as a young African American sixth grader,” the cardinal said. “Not only did I receive an excellent education at St. Carthage, but my formation helped to shape me into a young person on the road to a significant and positive life.”
Cardinal Gregory served as the archbishop of Washington from 2019 until Jan. 6, 2025, when Pope Francis accepted his retirement and named Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego as the new archbishop of Washington. Before being appointed as Washington’s archbishop, Cardinal Gregory earlier served as the archbishop of Atlanta; as the bishop of Belleville, Illinois; and as an auxiliary bishop and priest in Chicago. As president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002, then-Bishop Gregory led the nation’s bishops in adopting the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. In 2020, Pope Francis elevated Cardinal Gregory to the College of Cardinals, making him the first African American cardinal in the history of the Catholic Church.
Noting the impact of an educational opportunity in his own life, the cardinal said, “This is why we in The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington provide millions of dollars in tuition assistance each year to families. And this is what the SOAR Act – and specifically the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program – is all about. It gives disadvantaged kids today that education chance that I had – an educational choice that families of wealth and access sometimes take for granted. All parents certainly deserve and desire the ability to select the very best school for their child – in order to help make their successful future a reality, and not just a dream. This is the education opportunity our young scholars would not have, and will not have, without OSP.”
Praising the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, Cardinal Gregory said that an equal opportunity in education gives families a full range of schooling options and benefits the entire community, providing “a fair distribution of taxpayer funds, and a just and necessary way to address learning inequities and reduce disparities in academic achievement and graduation rates.”
Cardinal Gregory also noted, “With about half of all OSP families choosing to use their Opportunity Scholarships to send their kids to one of our Catholic schools out of the variety of education options available to them, I can personally attest that OSP works positively to transform lives.”
Also speaking at the anniversary reception was Virginia Walden Ford, who as the executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice played a key role in leading local parents as they advocated for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and gained support from D.C. officials and members of Congress. In the mid-1960s, Walden Ford, a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, was among the first 130 students along with her twin sister Harrietta who were chosen to desegregate that city’s high schools. After Congress in 2004 passed legislation authorizing the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships and President George W. Bush signed it into law, President Bush and Walden Ford appeared together at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington to extol the new program.
Describing the genesis of the OSP scholarships, Walden Ford said, “Twenty years ago, parents got together. We wanted to do something to help D.C. kids… We had it in our heads that we were going to make a difference, because we were watching our children fail.” She added, “We had the audacity to say we wanted something better for our kids.”
Reflecting on the adoption of the scholarship program, Walden Ford said, “We fought, and we won.” Summarizing the rationale for school choice programs, she emphasized, “Kids need to have opportunities to be in schools that serve them well.”
Another speaker at the reception, Kevin Chavous, a former member of the Council of the District of Columbia, also was a key leader in gaining the initial passage of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and later pushing for its reauthorization.
“This whole partnership with the relationship between Republicans and Democrats and local Washington and federal Washington was borne out of the notion that you could take politics out of education and do what’s right for kids,” Chavous said. “It was a unique concept at the time, and it worked.”
Chavous, the chairman of the Board of Trustees for Serving Our Children, is the president of Stride K12, Inc., a technology-based education company and the nation’s leading provider of proprietary curriculum and online school programs for students in pre-K through high school. Reflecting on the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, he said, “What we did 20 years ago was great for the city, great for parents and great for kids.”
Nicole Peltier-Lewis, the principal of Annunciation Catholic School in Washington, also spoke at the gathering, and said she has witnessed “firsthand the extraordinary transformation in students’ lives due to the Opportunity Scholarship Program.” She related how one OSP scholarship recipient came to their school as a second grader and “received the resources and individualized attention that she needed in a safe and nurturing learning environment. Today Maria is an honor roll student, a leader in our community and an inspiration to her peers.”
Also speaking at the gathering was Ronald Holassie, who was an OSP scholarship recipient as a student at Archbishop Carroll High School, where he graduated in 2011. He later earned a degree in communication arts from Florida International University. Now he works as an acting supervisory officer in the Department of Homeland Security in its U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.
“This is a movement and program I’m so proud to be a part of and will continue to fight for,” said Holassie, who as an Archbishop Carroll student testified before congressional committees on behalf of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.
A current OSP scholarship recipient – Acaden Lewis, a senior at Sidwell Friends School in Washington – spoke at the anniversary reception and noted the impact that the scholarship program has had on his life. Lewis, one of the top high school basketball players in the country, expressed thanks for the scholarship, and he noted that he has received a full athletic and academic scholarship to attend the University of Kentucky and play for the Wildcats’ basketball team there.
Betsy DeVos, a longtime champion of school choice who served as the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2017-2021, also addressed the OSP anniversary celebration.
“Education freedom is on the march across America, because it’s what families want and what kids need,” DeVos said. Noting how Congress authorized the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program 20 years ago, she expressed hope that the current Congress will pass “a federal tax credit and will deliver educational freedom to students and families in all 50 states and in every territory.”
