If legislators are serious about the program, funding to educate parents must be increased in order to insure that they make an informed choice.

The voucher program thus far hasn't been tried on a large enough scale to make decisive conclusions about its future role. According to The New York Times, researchers discovered that less than 2 percent of students have taken advantage of statewide choice programs even though the past two Secretaries of Education, Lauro Cavazos and Lamar Alexander, have both attempted to expand the program.

School choice is still in its infant stages. Success stories have come out of East Harlem, N.Y., Montclair, N.J. and Cambridge, Mass. as well. These schools fortunately received generous grants, indicating that any new move by the president must be supplemented with further educational budget allocations.

Clearly, school choice can succeed if given support and nourishment. Britain's system, identical to the proposed U.S. school choice initiative, has satisfied many parents since its inception three years ago. Scotland has enjoyed similar success since launching its program in 1982.

School choice as it exists today needs revamping. Currently, most parents chose schools because of their proximity to home, not their quality. Our schools face a desperate situation, and this progressive reform offers us a new alternative which should not be ignored.

Of course, school choice should not be seen as a panacea for our educational crisis. Indeed, this crisis has other causes besides crumbling schools. The decay of the family, for example, has contributed to educational problems. But family decay isn't problem government can readily solve. We have to attack on other fronts.

School choice provides such an opportunity. Vouchers can help bring us closer to educational egalitarianism if used in conjunction with efforts to shake up school bureaucracy and increase funding. Now that a different approach has been offered, America should not be so quick to dismiss it.