CHICAGO – Chicago students deserve the same opportunity for success in school and life as their peers in other cities across the country.

They deserve an opportunity to attend a school that’s not overcrowded and doesn’t have a history of dismal academics.

Chicago families deserve school choice.

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The Chicago Tribune made a very compelling case for that argument in an editorial Sunday that urges state lawmakers to reconsider a private school voucher program for the Windy City.

“At least six (private Catholic) schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago are scheduled to close this year because of low enrollment and lagging revenue. This is a school system in which 70 percent of third-graders are proficient in reading and about 73 percent are proficient in math, according to the 2012 TerraNova exams,” the Tribune editorial explained.

“At the high school level, 95 percent of its graduates enroll in a college or university. There is an opportunity here.”

For many families sending students to the city’s worst schools, the opportunity to attend one of Chicago’s private schools could literally be a life-saver. According to the Tribune, more than half of the city’s fourth-graders can’t read proficiently, and most of the city’s public schools have been on academic watch lists for nearly a decade.

Some Students have even been forced to take their lessons in the bathroom, using urinals as makeshift desks.

Lawmakers had an opportunity in 2010 to fix the situation when legislation to create a voucher program passed the state Senate, but was defeated in the House, where the state and city teachers unions hold considerable influence. The unions have also managed to keep the voucher debate from resurfacing.

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Unions, of course, hate private school vouchers because they allow students to escape poor performing public schools for other educational options. Since most private schools are not unionized, vouchers threaten the jobs of public school employees and the dues revenue they generate for their union.

But as the Tribune points out, vouchers are not only beneficial for students struggling in their local public school, they’re beneficial for taxpayers in general.

The 2010 voucher legislation “would have saved money,” according to the editorial. “Chicago Public Schools would have come out ahead financially.”

The cost savings come from the fact that most voucher programs only provide a portion of a student’s per-pupil state funding to their new private school, and the rest typically goes back into the pot, or to the public school the student would have attended.

So the student’s former school would still be paid a portion of the money for education nobody. How could public school officials complain about that?

The Tribune also highlights the numerous successful school choice programs that have taken root in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans and changed the life trajectory of students who would have been condemned to a substandard education.

In other words, school choice programs, particularly private school vouchers, have the potential to make a substantial difference in student learning in Chicago, and students there deserve the same opportunities as their peers in other states.

“It’s time to rescue kids trapped in failing and overcrowded neighborhood schools,” according to the Tribune editorial. “It’s time for the legislature to take up school choice.”