Cardinal Timothy Dolan called on the new national leadership to support school choice as the best path for education.

“For President Trump and the new Congress, the moment is now to pass meaningful school choice legislation to reach families in all 50 states,” the Archbishop of New York wrote on Sunday, February 2, in an editorial published in The New York Post.

Specifically, Cardinal Dolan asked the president and Congress to support the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), based on a school choice model already used in more than half of the United States. New York does not currently use such a system.

“Many other parents, however, find government schools inadequate to prepare their children academically, unsafe and/or undermine their family’s values and religious freedom.

“That is why expanding education freedom with school choice must be one of the solutions to improve education for all children, regardless of where they attend school,” Cardinal Dolan wrote.

Noting that Catholic Schools Week coincided with National School Choice Week this year, Cardinal Dolan pointed out that new data indicated students’ performance on standardized tests continues to decline.

“Elected officials in both parties should embrace the ECCA. That way, families from low-income to middle-class households can gain access to the quality of education for their children in the same way wealthier families already do,” Cardinal Dolan wrote.

Read the full editorial here.