The DC Voucher Story Finds Its Way to the Silver Screen, Sort Of.
There’s a movie about the DC school voucher program scheduled for release on October 18, 2019: Miss Virginia, produced by the nonprofit, Moving Picture Institute.
See a 2-minute trailer below:
The the individual who is the focus of the film, Virginia Walden Ford, was among the first students chosen to desegregate Little Rock, Arkansas, schools in the 1960s. Ford was a high school student at the time. She later advocated for the DC school voucher program, the only federally-funded school voucher program, created in 2004. From Ford’s website:
While she was raising her three children in Washington, D.C., Virginia was shocked that so many children were forced to attend failing, crumbling schools simply because they lived in the “wrong” ZIP codes. In fact, she worried that her own son, William, was falling through the cracks of a system that wasn’t focused on the best interests of children.In 1998, she took action, forming a grassroots organization, D.C. Parents for School Choice. Along with a group of dedicated parents, Virginia went door-to-door, neighborhood-to-neighborhood, recruiting and training thousands of other parents to stand up for their children’s futures.In 2003, with the support of national education organizations and CONTINUE READING: The DC Voucher Story Finds Its Way to the Silver Screen, Sort Of. | deutsch29