Fifty years ago, Brown vs. Board of Education desegregated schools. But an achievement gap still exists between black and white students. Last year, six of ten African American fourth graders scored below the basic level on national exams, while more than seventy five per cent of white students scored basic or higher. As a result, fewer black students graduate from high school or succeed in college.

To help close that gap, Sen. Lamar Alexander suggests a different way of spending some new federal dollars for schools: create a "Pell Grant For Kids," a $500 Scholarship that follows middle and low income children to the school or other academic program of the parents' choice. Parents could use these Pell grants to help their schools pay for more math teachers and or for new art programs -- or parents could purchase English or music lessons or other services that schools don't provide. The model for Pell Grants for Kids would be today's Pell grants for college students, federal dollars that-with student loans-- follow sixty per cent of America's college students to the institutions of their choice.

A Pell Grant for Kids, as argued by Senator Alexander, would narrow the gap between rich and poor school districts, give parents new consumer power to improve schools and help fund the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Pell Grants for Kids would be more federal dollars for schools with fewer strings and more local control over how the money is spent.

In its first year, Pell Grants for Kids would cost $2.5 billion new federal dollars, providing every middle and low-income student in kindergarten and first grade with a $500 scholarship. No existing program would be cut. Most of the new money should be spent improving public schools.

Sen. Alexander asks, "If the GI Bill for Veterans and Pell Grants helped to create opportunity and the best colleges in the world by letting scholarships follow students to the colleges of their choice, then why not use the same strategy to help close the achievement gap and create the best schools?"