Empowering the Poor : R&L Education : 9781578861194 : 1578861195 : 21 Oct 2004 : Do vouchers offer real hope for economically disadvantaged students in American schools? David Van Heemst contends that school choice will give every parent, including poor ones, a voucher to select schools. Poor children will have the opportunity to attend the finest schools, and will have a major hurdle in their path, a poor education, removed. Building on a twenty-year tradition of jurisprudence, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in July 2002 that there is no Establishment Clause violation in a well-designed system of school choice. The evidence from the small scale choice programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland suggests that not only do poor children benefit by maintaining or increasing their standardized test scores but also that families become empowered. Many polls demonstrate that not only poor parents favor school choice but that many middle and upper class Americans do too. As more parents get the opp