School choice, but few real options
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Every summer, an increasingly common event occurs across the nation - parents open a letter telling them that their child's school failed to meet benchmarks set by the federal No Child Left Behind law. As a result, the letter explains, they have the right to send their child to another public school if space is available.
The District is no stranger to this event. Some 39 percent of D.C. public school children attend independently run but publicly financed charter schools. About 30 percent more reject their neighborhood school to participate in the out-of-boundary program operated by D.C. public schools. So when parents with children in about 100 D.C. schools received this letter last year, you would think that they had plenty of good alternatives to their failing