Like everything that happens in Washington, D.C., the effort to bring the first-ever federally funded school voucher program to an estimated 2,000 schoolchildren takes place in a city that is really two cities: one is the nation’s capital, America’s center stage—while the other is a financially struggling city with a grossly underachieving school system in which 94 percent of students are minority, and 61 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

One result is that in D.C., big fights over the big-picture issues sometimes overwhelm local voices. (Learn more about the D.C. voucher legislation in “A National Spotlight on Vouchers”)

But Virginia Walden Ford, an outspoken local leader of grass-roots support for the voucher program, isn’t easily overwhelmed. “I’ve been blessed with a big old mouth,” said Walden Ford with a laugh, during our recent conversation. She’s the executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice. With the March 24, 2004 announcement that the Washington Scholarship Foundation has been chosen to administer the $14 million program, Walden Ford is looking ahead to September, when she hopes hundreds of low-income DC children will enter their new schools.

As a teenager, Walden Ford helped desegregate one of Little Rock’s high schools back in 1960. The daughter of a public-school administrator, her surprising evolution into a school choice advocate was sparked by her experience as a parent. She acknowledges that vouchers “aren’t the solution for what ails the D.C. schools,” but argues they can be a solution for individual children.

Now that the voucher program is on the verge of becoming reality, what is your hope for the program and for the children and families who take part?

I hope that those families who have been suffering in low performing schools will have an opportunity to look for something that works better for their children…

People assume if you don’t have money, that you aren’t smart, you don’t have questions, don’t have same dreams and hopes for your children. That is just a terrible assumption. Poor people have the same dreams as people with money, they just don’t have the resources to realize them. They have to be very creative. Or else they get hopeless.

You have a group of local parents who have worked hard with you on this issue. How did they come together?

When this effort began last year, there was a lot of talk about how there was not enough grassroots support. So we pulled together about 100 parents who were really involved in getting this done, saying “We want to come out and raise our voices.” We spent a lot of time on Capitol Hill, visiting members of Congress. We probably spent every day together for about 10 months.

They are just a small sample of the parents who want this, they are low-income parents who want something better for their children.

I have three children…Two were very academically gifted, and that’s not just a mother talking. They went through the public school system…They were just able to do it, they were driven academically.

With my youngest son, I saw problems early on… He was getting farther and farther behind, and the school system couldn’t explain it to me.

He started out with some hearing and speech problems, we had to fight the whole special ed thing. But as time went on and he got older, he seemed to be having problems less related to his disability than to what was going on in the system. I was losing him… By the time he was 13, he was two grades behind in reading and math. I wasn’t seeing that he was getting any help in school, though I certainly asked for it.

When William was in ninth grade, a young man moved into the neighborhood with his wife. He started talking with the boys in neighborhood, playing basketball. He saw something in my child he thought was worth saving, he offered us a scholarship to go to private school… just out of the blue.

We sent him to Archbishop Carroll High School and it just turned him around. I’m not saying he suddenly turned into an A student, but his attitude changed, and then gradually his grades came up.

When we ask him why, he said he felt like the school cared about what happened to him, he felt safe, that he didn’t have to hide. He had been hiding, because it wasn’t cool to be smart, he was fearful of showing how he wanted to do well in school.

This was 1997. I felt so relieved, and I felt like every mother should feel the way I felt. (William is now serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.)

D.C. has had charter schools since 1996. Now, here come vouchers. How do you think the public schools will respond?

The feeling for many years (within D.C. public schools) has been that any reform won’t last. They haven’t felt like they had to step up to the plate.

(Since vouchers came into the discussion) we’ve seen a lot more dialog about the school system serving the needs of children. But this is what it took to have that happen.

One of the things I’ve been so happy about this last year is this wide-open dialog going on about education, including parents, kids, administrators, legislators. I haven’t seen it happen this intensely in a long time.

How did you bring your core group together?

I went out in the field, I’d go out and talk to parents and ask if they were interested in voicing their opinions. And about one hundred of them were. It was really cool.

We found most of our parents through tenant associations, community centers. We were out all over the place… We took our message to housing projects, apartment buildings, it was not the way it had been done before. More in the street.

The one thing I’ve learned is the power of our voices, I’m not sure I even understood that. It’s given us the confidence to begin to plan how to get parents more involved. One thing we’re doing, we want to do a series of parent seminars, we’re going to do one on how to read the Stanford 9 test results, what to look for when you’re thinking about putting your child in another school.

The more information we can give people, parents, the better able we will be to advocate for the future.

Once the voucher program gets started, what kind of support will organizations like yours be able to offer families?

We will be there for them whatever their needs are. We have some plans about how we will meet some of the needs we see—maybe we’ll establish an emergency transportation fund, maybe we can collect uniforms and sell them cheap, or whatever.

When my son went to school on a private scholarship, it would have been really helpful to me to know other parents dealing with some of the same issues I had, like the additional costs of uniforms and books. At times I didn’t have a car, it was hard to figure out how to get him to school. I try to base some of the work we do on the experiences I had.

Have you ever felt just plain tired? This has all taken a long time.

I cannot tell you how tired I’ve felt. During the campaign when things were not going well and we were losing votes, I felt tired. But I just had to look at my son. I am convinced that William would not be doing very well had he not had the opportunity to go to another school and go to an environment that worked for him.

I keep a picture of him everywhere. I get tired of debating the same old issues, telling people you need to take a look at the children before you vote No.

When you sent your child to private school, did you find what you were looking for?

For me, for William, when he went to private school it was about safety. I wanted him to feel safe, and I wanted him to feel challenged. They had a strong academic program, the environment was peaceable and safe.

This school worked for him. You have to look at each child… One of my stepsons, he was the middle boy out of seven boys, and he needed a place to shine. We found a charter school with a military focus, and he thrived there. William wouldn’t have done well there, he needed peace and tranquility.

I wasn’t looking for a perfect school, I was looking for a school where he could thrive. You don’t want to look for a perfect school, but the school that serves your child. And that could be a public school, a charter school, a private school.

This voucher program is sure to draw legal challenges. Are you worried?

The opposition is putting up a fight, but we are confident…I can’t even believe that it won’t work.

Connect for Kids Editor Susan Phillips is a parent of two children in Washington, D.C. public schools.