(From the Winston-Salem Journal, May 2, 2009)
By DARRELL ALLISON
An educational report made headlines in March by revealing that black students in North Carolina are being suspended at a staggering rate.
According to the report, black males in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County receive short-term suspensions at nearly four times the rate of white males. Other national studies indicate that statewide, fewer than half of black males earn high-school diplomas in four years, and black males are expelled at three times the rate of white male students.
In light of such alarming racial disparity, it was appropriate that Howard Fuller, a professor of education at Marquette University and Chair of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, delivered the 3rd Annual Poverty Awareness Week Keynote Speech at UNC Chapel Hill on April 3.
Known for his civil-rights activism in North Carolina during the 1960s and ’70s, Fuller returned to the Tarheel state earlier than scheduled to speak in Durham at a school for low-income, minority young men. The pit stop was a highlight for Fuller, who has gained national recognition championing an issue he considers the most important civil-rights battle for African-Americans today — equal educational opportunity through parental school choice.
For critics of the parental-choice movement, Fuller offers a harsh dose of reality. “When they say, ‘school choice will destroy public education,’ we say, ‘you don’t know what public education is.’
“What makes public education public is that it operates in the public interest,” said Fuller. “And having 28 percent completion rates for black children is not in the public interest.”
But Fuller is hardly the first African-American or Democrat to take an outside-the-box approach to closing the achievement gap. National groups like Democrats for Education Reform have blazed a trail across political and racial lines to support increased educational options for disadvantaged children. From President Obama, who supports nontraditional charter schools, to rising leaders such as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who advocates K-12 vouchers, prominent African-Americans are redefining the parental school-choice movement as one of social justice.
Last year, state Sen. Malcolm Graham of Charlotte, an African-American and Democrat, co-sponsored a bill for special-needs tuition tax credits that would have allowed qualifying families of special-needs children to obtain up to $6,000 a year for tuition costs. An estimated 3,000 eligible students with disabilities would have been provided with education designed to meet their specific needs.
“In the 21st century, I think we all agree with the adage that one size does not fit all,” Graham said of the legislation. “Certainly that has to be true when it comes to the education of some of our neediest children.”
On the local level, Vivian H. Burke, a Winston-Salem city councilwoman and mayor pro tem, is among a growing number of black municipal leaders looking at new approaches to achieving equal educational opportunity for all students, regardless of race, disability or income.
“We can’t just close our eyes to what is happening in our communities,” Burke said in response to the recent school-suspension report. “When it comes to educating students who are most at risk, we need to consider every possible solution no matter how politically controversial it may be. That means putting parents and children ahead of politics.”
Although state, local and national leaders may not be in total agreement on the state of public education as a whole, their like-minded, solutions-oriented approach does highlight the unique challenges faced by children in poverty, children with disabilities and children of color in our current school system. It also underscores the point that more and more black Democrats are willing to take bold positions on how we must educate those children.
Rebutting parental school choice from a purely philosophical standpoint is becoming less tenable for black democratic leaders — especially considering the communities they represent and call home. “It goes beyond statistics; it’s personal,” said Winston-Salem City Councilwoman Evelyn Terry of rising suspension and poor achievement rates for black children. “When it comes to the futures of our own children and communities, we have to consider every option.”
Providing more quality educational options in those communities is not just a matter of policy. For the 10,152 black children who were suspended from Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools last year, it’s a matter of survival.
Darrell Allison is the president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina.