Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations and current defender of President Donald Trump, says America's future may lie in school choice.
He made this claim during speaking at the Republican National Convention, at which he also said it is “now fashionable” among the majority of Democrats to proclaim that the United States is a racist country.
Recent report from the Milwaukee area, where a school voucher program has been around for years, it found that black students are the “most oversegregated in the nation”—a fact that clearly contradicts its goals Brown v. Board of Education.
Using her own story as an Indian-American woman who has achieved remarkable success, Haley flatly refused that this country is full of racism. He argued that “of course every Black life matters,” including those black police officers shot in the line of duty and black children “shot on the playground.”
In Haley's view, it's not “Joe Biden and the socialist left” that will change things for black people and their fellow Americans, but the overflow of freedom promised by the Republican Party — including the freedom to gravitate toward their business activity. boots.
In the Republican fantasy of America to which Haley's entire speech belongs, school choice is the ultimate expression of that freedom. After declaring America a decidedly non-racist place, Haley offered this pablum:
“We're trying to get to a brighter future,” he insisted, “where every child goes to a world-class school, chosen by their parents.”
The premise here is that world-class schools exist for every child, regardless of zip code, as the saying goes. The only missing ingredient is parental choice. It's up to parents to line up their child with the right world-class school, like choosing a new couch from a glossy list of options.
Haley's vision for a brighter future driven by school choice resonated throughout the RNC. Speaker after speaker, from state representatives to Trump himself, is vigorously promoted the idea that what parents—and especially parents of color—want and need more than anything else is an ever-expanding buffet of school options.
While Haley was unabashedly happy about America and its supposed wealth of world-class school choice, most of the other RNC speakers, including California public school teacher and anti-union activist Rebecca Friedrichs, is depicted existing public schools are little more than terrifying cells for children stuck in an endless chapter of Oliver Twist.
Democrats, of course, have pitched the same story. The Obama-Mayden administration enacted a Hunger Games-such as approaching school reform by requiring states to I compete among themselves for desperately needed federal funds for education.
States deemed friendly to charter school expansion were more likely to be named winners in the administration's Race to the Top program, according to Arne Duncan, Obama's Secretary of Education;
Democratic candidate Joe Biden's position on this is unclear so far. Charter schools were indeed favored by most high-profile Democrats during his tenure as Vice President when school choice was introduced. I was by President George W. Bush—as “the civil rights issue of our time.”
President Trump has succeeded parroted and this line. Biden, however, seems willing to at least speak to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, where school choice is rightly criticized for issues of fraud, turmoil and an overall failure to invest in marginalized communities.
But instead of offering a full-throated defense of public education, Biden has offered a mild condemnation of for-profit charters, even though they often scam Schools make up a very small percentage of all charter options in the United States.
This remains a strong issue in the Midwest. Here are some examples to consider.
Recent report from the Milwaukee area, where a school voucher program has been around for years, it found that black students are the “most oversegregated in the nation”—a fact that clearly contradicts its goals Brown v. Board of Education.
Michigan also serves as an unfortunate poster child for the damage caused by unregulated, politically motivated school choice programs. Before becoming Trump's secretary of education, Michigan native Betsy DeVos used her fortune to push the state's K-12 schools to “race down”, through the proliferation of mindless schools.
In Minneapolis, a local advocacy group known as the Minnesota Parents Association held a Press conference outside the city's public school headquarters on Sept. 2, just days before the start of the new school year.
The group, which is funded in part by wealthy preschool choice institutiontook aim at the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, saying its 3,000-plus members are using the pandemic to “take the year off,” in an apparent reference to the school district's distance learning plan.
The Minnesota Parents Association has ties to the National Association of Parents, which receives funding by the Walton Family Foundation. The foundation has poured billions into the school choice movement through the wealth Walmart creates.
It makes sense, then, that the press conference held in front of Minneapolis Public Schools headquarters called for an immediate boycott of the district, with the promise that parents would get help for search for a new school—public, private or charter.
That event sparked a heated debate on a local Facebook page created for parents with children in Minneapolis Public Schools. While some people acknowledged the difficulty parents of color have in navigating the school system (and that shouldn't be underestimated), many questioned the wisdom of promoting a boycott right before the start of a new pandemic-affected school year.
That's because every family that leaves the district takes their child's per-pupil funds with them, making it even harder for public schools to meet the needs of those left behind. Students with the fewest resources usually end up they fight over crumbsinstead of walking off into the sunset or into a “world class” school of their parents' choice.
School choice is a hot campaign issue for Republicans. Now, we need Democrats to step up and speak out in support of fully funding public education in the United States.
