(RALEIGH) -- Parents and school choice advocates from across the state gathered at the General Assembly to demand a better education for low income students. A rally in support of the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program took place on Tuesday.

The program would give poor students funding to attend non-public schools. Darrell Allison of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina said a staggering number of low-income kids are failing state exams.

"In our public schools currently we have over 336,000 low-income students that did not pass state exams and when you step back and you really think about that number, I think that's about a quarter of the total student population across our state," said Allison.

Mary Russell traveled from Jarvisburg in Currituck County in support of her son and daughter.  "Our oldest child is a very bright young lady who struggles very much reading comprehension and there are a lot of children out there like that. Read comprehension is needed for every subject in school.  Without it they continue to go down and go down and go down," said Russell.

Allison said low-income parents often don't have the resources to send their children to high-performing schools. His group wanted legislators to hear about the problem directly from parents instead of lobbyists.