National School Choice Week may be over but you can wear this choice swag every day of the year.

Reader: I fear the dreaded day has at last arrived—the end of National School Choice Week. Like you, I find myself wrestling with an urgent, existential question: how is it that an issue as fiercely urgent as school choice can be confined to a single week? Good news choice lovers: it turns out that National School Choice Week is actually a year-round organization with its own president who shows up for work during the other 51 weeks of the year—that is when he’s not out on other urgent choice-related business. Did I say choice? I meant ¢hoi¢e. Once again the civil rights issue of our time is demonstrating measurable success, in the bank accounts of the rephormers that is.

Before we meet the young master who is at the helm of National School Choice Week, let’s bust a move together, shall we? Grab your yellow choice scarves everyone—it’s dancing time. (Note: do NOT try the “Breakdance for Choice” routine at home as injury or achievement gaps may result).

How cool was that?


That super cool dance party, by the way, was one of 3,600 school-choice related events held throughout the country last week. (Even celebrities got in on the fun, if by celebrities you mean John Boener, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and edu-tainer extraordinaire Michelle Rhee.) You see the thing about choice is that everybody is in favor of it—or they would be if they just understood what it meant. Fortunately National School Choice Week was happy to provide some helpful hints for choice lovers who wanted to organize an event in favor of choice but weren’t all that sure what the choice was that they were organizing the event for. Helpful tip #1: use words that work, also avoid talk of specific policies as they can cause support for choice to slip.

Choicing a career


But enough with the event planning already—you want to meet the master event planner who is behind all of these outstanding National School Choice Week events. Reader: I give you Mr. Andrew Campanella. What do you mean you’ve never heard of him before? He is:

Recognized as one of the education reform movement’s most effective communications strategists and event organizers, Andrew Campanella is president of National School Choice Week, the nation’s largest-annual celebration of educational reform.

The former director of marketing and communications for the Alliance for School Choice, Mr. Campanella was formerly known as “one of the education reform movement’s youngest and most enthusiastic communications strategists.”I will allow you to pour over his biography here, but suffice it to say that Mr. Campanella is practically steeped in choice. In fact he has been advocating for low-income parents (is that what this is???) since he left his early position advocating for Niagara Falls and handling “crisis-level communications situations regarding amusement ride injuries and deaths.” I will leave you to ponder the obvious parallels in these respective lines of work while you hoist your winebox to the end of National School Choice Week.

How will you be celebrating the end of National School Choice Week? Send event planning tips to tips@edushyster.com.