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NJ MINISTERS SCHOOL CHOICE STATEMENT ON MORAL
OBLIGATION TO SUPPORT OSA
We Have a Moral Imperative to
"Choose Life" for Our Children
May
4, 1967 Martin Luther King said it was better to
shed a little blood than to have children graduating
at a 5th grade reading level. Dr. King was stressing
how far we must go, in order to avoid graduating
people to lifelong suffering because they lack
requisite skills to succeed.
Today, across
America, urban
youth are graduating, if they graduate, with the
same reading level Dr. King warned us about many
years ago. We have, now, a clear moral obligation to
do whatever is necessary to put
an end to this carnage and genocide, in urban America. We have a moral obligation
to act, regardless of where we believe fault lies.
The
Opportunity Scholarship Act is a
solution. It is legislation that
offers parents of children attending schools that
have failed, an opportunity to attend another school
that might be more beneficial to them.
As people of conscience, we realize if a river ran
through our property, and we knew 7 out of 10
children going into that river were drowned by the
undertow, we would be guilty of criminal negligence
if
we allowed a single subsequent child to enter that
river. But what would we be guilty of if we actually
forced them into that same river?
As genocide takes place in our communities, I am
reminded of Joe Welsh's penetrating question to Joe
McCarthy (1954), Have we no sense of decency? At
long last, have we left no sense of decency?
We are debating if poor parents of children in
dangerous, non-productive
schools should have a choice whether they should be
condemned to obvious, statistically proven
dead-zones, or not?
If the detractors of the Opportunity Scholarship Act
are sincere, they can
simply call parents receiving
Opportunity
Scholarships, in DC. However,
most realize they won't find parents that regret
being given an
opportunity to choose where their children are
educated.
The families enrolled in the DC Scholarship Program
have learned what
we want our leaders in
New Jersey
to learn: that "Choice matters!"
We advocate that you Choose Life, my friend.
We have a moral imperative, old as life itself to
protect our children. Martin Luther King said, "The
time is always right to do the right thingThe
Opportunity
Scholarship Act is clearly, the right thing. |