Re-segregation & the 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Ed. (Part 1)
Politicians are ignoring research, allowing re-segregation, and supporting charter schools over public. As I posted here, economist, Milton Friedman developed the concept of school choice in 1955, a year after desegregation.
Friedman wrote about his desire for parents to chose if their children would attend racially desegregated schools:
” Under (a choice) system, there can develop exclusively white schools, exclusively colored schools, and mixed schools. Parents can choose which to send their children to. The appropriate activity for those who oppose segregation and racial prejudice is to try to persuade others of their views; if and as they succeed, the mixed schools will grow at the expense of the nonmixed, and a gradual transition will take place. So long as the school system is publicly operated, only drastic change is possible; one must go from one extreme to the other; it is a great virtue of the private arrangement that it permits a gradual transition.”
Today we are watching politicians who are not educated in the field of education use Friedman’s ideas and knowingly or unknowingly re-segregate our public schools. We live in an age where business leaders & politicians call for a “globally competitive workforce,” but are literally putting up walls between students who should be sitting side-by-side in public schools breaking down barriers. In the selective charter school industry, only students who fit their mold get accepted. Those who get accepted and don’t rule-follow well or test well are pushed out. Students who don’t fit into molds are often students who have the very potential to be our next innovative leaders.
Diane Ravitch reports, “Congress is about to pass new charter legislation, awarding more money to the charter sector, which will operate with minimal accountability or transparency. The bill has already passed the House of Representatives with a bipartisan majority and will now move to the Senate. Make no mistake: on the 60th anniversary of the Brown decision, Congress is set to expand a dual school system. One sector, privately managed, may choose its students, exclude those who might pull down its test scores, and kick
- See more at: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/re-segregation-60th-anniversary-brown-v-board-ed-part-1/Resegregation and the 60th anniversary of Brown V Board Part 2
By PAA-Suburban Philadelphia leader Danielle Schwartz, reprinted from her excellent blog, What’s the Big Idea? In President Obama’s Proclamation on the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, he confuses those of us who fully understand the fallout of this administration’s decisions and actions on public education. He states, “On the 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, let us heed