The school choice movement is growing because of real parents with real children, with real needs, who are seeing real benefits. In this video from Louisiana BAEO, parent LeAnn Mason talks about the upside of the voucher program in Louisiana, which is facing a constitutional challenge from the state teachers unions.

Mason said one of her children was in a public school where she endured a string of substitute teachers for two months. To get her to a better school, Mason sent her to live with relatives.

To help another child, Mason used a private school voucher. Now "my baby's reading ... she's blossoming," she said. "And this means a lot to me because this is going to help my children come out of poverty. This is going to help my children do things that I was not able to do."

Mason makes her case far better than I can. Please watch the video.

Lewis

Now this is a story. The piece about Louisiana's voucher program in today's New Orleans Times-Picayune is paced with real parents, talking about the real needs of their kids - and how the voucher program, under legal assault, has helped them meet those needs. The lead alone should be enough to move even the most detached reader into understanding why there is real fear and rising anger about what the future may bring.

The story also contains moving words from Eric Lewis, director of Louisiana BAEO: "No one is talking about how I drive by boys every day who are headed to jail because they've given up on getting an education," Lewis tells the parents, "but there are people who wake up every morning with the intent of killing this program."

"How mad are you?" he asks at one point. "You're going to have to get even madder."

Gov. Jindal

A district judge ruled Friday that Louisiana's statewide voucher program is unconstitutional because of the mechanism it uses to send public funds to private entities, prompting groans from school choice supporters, cheers from teachers unions and promises of an appeal from Gov. Bobby Jindal.

"Today is really significant," said Steve Monaghan, president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, according to Reuters. "What the governor was doing was unprecedented and unconstitutional under Louisiana law."

The reaction from Jindal: "Today's ruling is wrong headed and a travesty for parents across Louisiana who want nothing more than for their children to have an equal opportunity at receiving a great education," he said in a statement reported by the New Orleans Times Picayune. "That opportunity is a chance that every child deserves and we will continue the fight to give it to them."

More coverage from Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Baton Rouge Advocate, Houma Today, Alexandria Town Talk, Christian Science Monitor, Education Week.

Reaction from American Federation for Children, Friedman Foundation, Louisiana BAEO, Dropout Nation, Time-Picayune columnist Andre Perry and the Louisiana School Boards Association.