'School choice' a priority to First Lady hopeful Heidi Cruz
NEW YORK CITY (Christian Examiner)—During a CNN Town Hall meeting earlier this week, Heidi Cruz, the wife of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, said she would focus on school choice—among other priorities—if her husband is elected president.
"I would work very hard to ensure that every child in this country had a fair and equal opportunity at a quality education," Cruz told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
"I would work very hard to ensure that every child in this country had a fair and equal opportunity at a quality education."
The Harvard Business School graduate and mother of two girls said she'd also focus on empowering young girls through an emphasis on self-esteem, leadership and entrepreneurship.
Cruz previously served as a George W. Bush administration staff member and as a finance executive. She was a managing director at Goldman Sachs in Houston before she took an unpaid leave to join her husband's campaign in March of 2015 after he became the first Republican candidate to officially step into the race.
Heidi's husband, Ted, has also been a strong advocate of school choice, the belief that parents should be able to use public money to send their children to private schools. Last October Ted Cruz called school choice "the civil rights issue of the 21st century," according to The Blaze. He said school choice allows low-income Americans the same access to schools as rich and middle-class students.
"The facts are unequivocal – school choice improves students' test scores, keeps them in school longer, saves taxpayer dollars, provides a safer learning environment, and increases competition and quality in traditional public schools," Ted Cruz said in February of 2015, according to the American Federation for Children.
Though now a Southern Baptist, Heidi Cruz grew up as a Seventh Day Adventist in California, where she attended private schools. She graduated from secondary school at Monterey Bay Academy, an Adventist boarding school in La Selva Beach, Calif.