Category: Parental Rights

As soon as my fiancé and I moved to Washington, D.C. in 2008, we started looking at school options. Although children were still a few years off, we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to research the various schools available to us.

The district provides multiple school choices for children starting at age 3, including traditional, charter and private schools, and we were thrilled to learn several dual-language immersion schools were among our choices.

Source: Our Neighborhood School Didn’t Have a Dual-Language Immersion Program So We Started One

Like hundreds of thousands of Black families, my paternal grandmother and several of her relatives participated in the Great Migration, one of the most dramatic population shifts in American history.

Although some Blacks left the South to pursue economic opportunities, a lot of them had no choice—it was often for safety and security, to escape overt and violent oppression. Blacks leaving the South in droves, was not, of course, the same as being sold as chattel, but it was rooted in oppression nonetheless.

Source: The Second Great Migration for Black Families Is Embracing School Choice

“Despite Republican control of the governor’s mansion and both houses of the State Legislature, proposals to significantly expand school choice programs in Iowa are stalled, at least for now. The pushback has come from groups traditionally opposed to the idea — Democrats, school districts, teachers’ unions and parents committed to public schools — but also from some conservatives concerned about the cost to the state.

Iowa is one of 31 states where legislators have proposed creating or expanding school choice programs this year, without Washington even lifting a finger. Even if just a few of the bills pass, the number of children attending private schools with public money could greatly increase, one reason the proposals are meeting resistance.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says school choice and local control are important in education.

Source: DeVos Promotes School Choice, Local Control | Political News | US News

There is no doubt about the link between education and economic prosperity. There’s no need to cite here the extensive economic research that connects individual income to educational attainment.  A person who attends a good school system is better prepared for college, graduation and eventual entry into a good paying profession.

What happens to a child who is stuck or  captive in a chronically failing school system? What are the odds that that kid will end up unemployed, dependent on government assistance, or possibly in jail? What happens to that kid’s dreams or ambitions?

Sadly, in 2017, education remains the battleground for civil rights.  There is no reason why a failing school should remain open year after year to ruin the lives of young people. There is also no reason why a person’s ZIP Code should determine their destiny.
If we truly believe that education is the key to success, why do we continue to tolerate a public school system model that keeps certain people captive with no choice other than to attend a failed school system.

The solution is to free people to make choices.  All parents, not just the rich, should be free to choose an alternative to the local failed schools. Let parents vote with their feet like any customer would vote when choosing one product over another.

There is no time to waste. Far too many lives are at stake. Let’s free people from educational captivity by giving them choices.