School Choice: The Next Civil Rights Movement

As discussed over the past few weeks, parents are willing to go to jail to get their children in a better school; parents stand in long lines for a shot at a voucher to allow their child into a school of their choice; parents have taken over schools; and even students have gotten part time jobs to pay for a better education.  However, the education bureaucracy continues to fight efforts to allow parents to choose their child's school.  This defiance continues to trap children into failing or under performing schools.

Below are some disturbing statistics compiled by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation:

• For African-American and Hispanic students across the country, dropout rates are close to 40 percent, compared to the national average of 27 percent. (EPE, 2012)
• Two out of three eighth-graders can’t read proficiently and most will never catch up. (NAEP, 2011) (NAEP, 2011)
• Nearly two-thirds of eighth-graders scored below proficient in math. (NAEP, 2011)
• Seventy-five percent of students are not proficient in civics. (NAEP, 2011)
• Nearly three out of four eighth-and 12th-grade students cannot write proficiently. (NAEP, 2012)
• Some 1.1 million American students drop out of school every year. (EPE, 2012)
• After World War II, the United States had the #1 high school graduation rate in the world. Today, we have dropped to # 22 among 27 industrialized nations. (OECD, 2012)
• American students rank 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading compared to students in 27 industrialized countries.(OECD, 2012)
• By the end of the eighth-grade, U.S. students are two years behind in math compared to their peers in other countries. (OECD, 2009)
• American students tend to perform worse in math and science as they age, according to recent studies measuring fourth- and eighth-graders' academic achievement against other industrialized nations. Gaps with high performing countries like North Korea and Singapore are widening. (TIMSS, 2012)

While there has been some attempts to hold schools accountable for performance, most notably No Child Left Behind (NCLB), none have really had a great affect as the statistics above bear out.  In fact NCLB has been disastrous with many schools trying to circumvent the test by what is called teaching to the test, i.e. they teach exactly what is needed to pass the test and do not teach children how to love learning.  This practice is creating a One Size Fits All system that hurts every student and especially the poor and underprivileged.

Our current system of public education is broken and has now reached a point of great disparity between rich and poor schools. Denying parents access to quality education is a civil rights issue.  African Americans used the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution in 1954 in Brown vs Topeka to end the practice of “separate but equal” which segregated schools by race.  Today we have “separate and unequal” between rich and poor schools.

There are approximately 50 million students in our public schools today.  With about 66% or just over 2.4 million eighth-graders unable to read or do math proficiently, where is the concern for the child's education?  With almost a 40% dropout rate for African-American and Hispanics, why are people not marching in the streets yet demanding access to a quality education for all children?

There are a multitude of reasons that many people do yet view school choice as a civil rights issue.  Here are a few:

1. Parents do not want to view their school as inadequate or failing.  They like their child's teacher for the most part.
2. They feel trapped because they cannot afford to move to a better district.
3. They cannot afford private school.
4. They do not feel they can homeschool.
5. They do not know the overall statistics of whether their school is failing or not, because their child is getting good enough grades.

Reason #5 and #1 are the largest contributing factors in my observation. This will change as more and more parents and students stand up for their rights by being willing to be fined or go to jail to get a better education.  The news media will no longer be able to hide the truth and will start reporting these stories as we do here.