Reminder for CA’n lawmakers: School choice is as anti-racist as you get

Writing for the Washington Examiner, Black Minds Matter founder Denisha Merriweather critiques claims that affording families more robust options re: their kids’ schooling is—yup, you guessed it—racist. Countering these ideas, Merriweather unpacks why initiatives that champion parents and communities are “anything but racist.”

The hope for education freedom for black Americans didn't start in the 1960s, when Friedman proposed the theory of school choice, and to think so gives too much credit to Friedman and none to my ancestors who died and fought for the freedom of black bodies and minds. Just as the history of education didn’t start in the 1960s, it doesn't end there.

Institutional racism persists today. It has morphed from denial by race to denial by ZIP code. Redlining promotes less funding for mostly minority schools, and it encourages more funding for higher-income, mostly white schools.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 13 out of 100 black eighth-grade students are proficient in math, and only 15 out of 100 are proficient in reading. There is a direct link between the failures of the educational system and student achievement. We must do something different, so why not follow the path of Washington and Rosenwald — why not ensure every black child has the opportunity to attend a high-quality school of their parents’ choice?...

Given the public education system’s unwillingness or inability to educate black students adequately, we need a new system, one that is built by our community and empowered by parents. That is anything but racist.

This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner. Read the whole thing here.

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