Editor's note: This piece is in response to the U.S. Department of Justice's legal action against the voucher program in Louisiana. It is co-authored by Howard Fuller, board chairman of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, and Kevin Chavous, executive counsel of the American Federation for Children.
Fuller and Chavous: The DOJ has wrongly decided that allowing these children a life line to getting a better education must take a back seat to whether or not they impact desegregation. (Image from baeo.com)
It is easier to say we must take the long view when grappling with the issue of social justice than it is to actually practice it. Such is the problem the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has today as it wrongly inserts itself in the effort to give low-‐income children in Louisiana an opportunity to get a better education. DOJ is suing the state of Louisiana, more specifically 34 parishes in the state that are still under a desegregation law, claiming that the state’s school choice scholarship program unlawfully allows students to leave failing public schools and go to high-‐performing private schools by way of a scholarship. DOJ thinks it’s wrong and illegal to allow that to happen.
When one takes the long view, it’s necessary to understand the moment in history in which you exist and what is the primary problem being faced at that particular moment in the continuum of the struggle for social justice over time.
In America today the primary problem facing children from low-income and working class families is getting a quality education. The Louisiana Scholarship Program was created to give these students a way to escape failing schools. It allows them to apply for a scholarship and choose a school that for them holds the promise of a better education.
The DOJ has wrongly decided that allowing these children a life line to getting a better education must take a back seat to whether or not they impact desegregation. No one with any sense of history will deny that at one point in time the state of Louisiana used this power to fund schools that were for whites only.
But that was then and this is now. In this instance, the state of Louisiana is on the right side of history because its actions are giving children the best chance to ultimately participate in mainstream American society by giving them access to better educational opportunities. (more…)
Campbell
Elected black Democrats who support vouchers and charter schools are slowly but surely finding themselves less isolated. And for that, they can thank relentless parents, said Kenneth Campbell, president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options.
The tide is changing because of “this constant drumbeat that they’re hearing from parents about how much their kids are struggling,” Campbell told redefinED in the podcast interview attached below. “More and more people are just coming to this realization that even if I don’t necessarily like the people that are proposing this, we don’t have any other options. And we’ve heard that time and time again, as we’ve gone out and worked with elected officials - that we can’t ignore the pleas of our parents anymore.”
Campbell offered his comments on the eve of BAEO’s annual symposium, which is being held today through Saturday in Orlando. The largest gathering of black school choice supporters in the country will draw 650 people this year, including 50 current and former elected officials. It comes amidst head-spinning ferment on the choice front, with states as disparate as Louisiana, Washington and New Hampshire passing historic measures in the past year alone.
“There are a lot of people in our community who are rightfully concerned and skeptical about motives, and about is this the right thing to do,” Campbell said. “But I think increasingly, we have reached the point where there’s no excuse for not acting with urgency in giving kids and parents options.”
BAEO has been a leading voice for parental school choice since it formed in 2000. Its ranks include a number of leading reformers, including Howard Fuller, Kevin Chavous and T. Willard Fair, who co-founded the first charter school in Florida and served as chair of the state Board of Education.
Florida is an apt place for the group to meet. (more…)
Chavous
Kevin Chavous, a senior advisor to the American Federation for Children, criticizes President Obama in this recent Washington Post op-ed for not supporting the Washington D.C. voucher program and suggests a new approach for Term 2:
I have long been a supporter of the president, and I continue to applaud many of his education initiatives, including his embrace of charter schools. But his administration’s opposition to giving low-income families the full slate of educational options — captured when he zeroed out funding for the program in his budget this year, despite the earlier deal in which he agreed to reauthorizing the program for five years — is unacceptable. ...
These roadblocks are part of a long history of the administration’s resolute opposition to the voucher program, from Education Secretary Arne Duncan rescinding 216 scholarships in 2009 to the department ignoring the positive results of a gold-standard study, conducted by its own Institute of Education Sciences, that found that D.C. voucher students graduate at a rate of 91 percent — more than 20 percentage points higher than those who sought a voucher but either didn’t get one or didn’t enroll in the program after being accepted. Because of the delaying tactics of the department, a credible — and federally mandated — new study of the program cannot be conducted unless the program enrolls hundreds of new students next year. ...
On many occasions during his first term, President Obama demonstrated an ability to embrace education reforms that help kids, and I expect that to continue now that he has won a decisive reelection. What’s different about this one? This is an easy one: All he and his Education Department have to do is get out of the way and let a successful program work. Full op-ed here.
Editor’s note: This is our second installment of “blog stars,” a compilation of thoughtful material from other ed blogs. If I missed something good, by all means let me know at rmatus@stepupforstudents.org.
Jay P. Greene's Blog: Much to Learn About Vouchers Rhee Still Has
Michelle Rhee’s faith in regulation is odd. The public school system is super-heavily regulated with laws and policies streaming down from the federal, state and local levels. Despite all of that, much of the system performs at a tragically poor level. That of course is not to say that vouchers should have no regulation, but the right level of regulation is not “heavy.”
Rhee also places far too much weight on the results of standardized test and gives far too little deference to the judgment of parents. Parents make decisions about schools for a large variety of reasons- including things like school safety, peer groups and the availability of specialized programs. In addition to missing the whole point about school choices being multifaceted with parents best able to judge all the factors, individual test scores bounce around from year to year, they often take a temporary hit when a child transfers and adjusts to a new school.
The notion of having program administrators looking at the math and reading tests and deciding to cast children back to their ‘failing neighborhood school’ is very problematic. Pity the poor voucher program apparatchiks who have to drag children back to a public school where they had been continually bullied because they had the flu on testing day. Pity the children more. The subject of what to do about poorly performing private schools in a choice system is a complex topic and opinions vary widely. Rhee’s proposed solution however does not begin to capture this complexity. Full post here.
The Blog, Huffington Post: Are Democrats Wrong to Blame Teachers Unions?
But why are teachers unions so much more successful than other unions? The answer is simple: public schools lack both competitors and paying customers, eliminating the checks and balances on union demands that exist in the private sector. A business whose unionized workers drive up costs without raising quality loses customers and may have to lay off workers or even shut down. Union success is thus self-regulating. But if, as a parent, you don't like the way your local district runs its schools, you have nowhere else to turn -- not without moving or paying for a private school. And as a taxpayer, if your local schools mismanage your tax dollars, you can't send those dollars anywhere else. That's why public schooling's inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending has more than doubled in the past four decades despite stagnating or declining academic outcomes: revenues don't depend on satisfying customers.
That's not the unions' fault. (more…)
Let's be clear. The American Federation For Children spends significant sums of money to elect candidates who support educational options, and it usually does so in direct competition with teacher unions. But those who dismissed the AFC 2011 National Policy Summit as either politically or philosophically monolithic are playing some partisan games of their own.
Yes, as a Salon columnist readily noted on Monday while depicting the event as “right wing” and “religious right,” the two-day summit in Washington indeed featured speeches by two Republican governors, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania and Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Both governors have pushed education agendas that include private school options.
But let's also fill in the rest of this picture. The event was emceed by a black Democrat and former D.C. Council member, Kevin Chavous. Those sharing the stage over the two days included: Michelle Rhee, a Democrat and former D.C. school chancellor; Ann Duplessis, a black Democrat who served in the Louisiana Senate and is now New Orleans' deputy chief administrative officer; Alisha Morgan, a black Democrat and Georgia representative; Anthony Williams, a black Democrat and Pennsylvania senator; Kenneth Campbell, president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options BAEO; and Julio Fuentes, president of the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options.
The federation's annual education advocacy award was handed to Howard Fuller, the former Milwaukee superintendent and BAEO founder who has called private options for poor black students the civil rights cause of this era. The conference closed with a rousing call to action by an African-American minister from New Jersey, Rev. Reginald Jackson, who invoked the memory of Malcolm X. “We must assure that our children get a quality education,” Jackson intoned, “and, as Malcolm X said, by any means necessary.” (more…)
