{"id":975,"date":"2017-04-01T17:02:53","date_gmt":"2017-04-01T21:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bakeramitchell.com\/?p=975"},"modified":"2017-04-01T17:02:53","modified_gmt":"2017-04-01T21:02:53","slug":"let-my-people-go-removing-the-shackles-of-academic-jim-crow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/2017\/04\/01\/let-my-people-go-removing-the-shackles-of-academic-jim-crow\/","title":{"rendered":"Let My People Go: Removing the Shackles of Academic Jim Crow"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Dr. Root<\/p><\/div>\n

On Wednesday March 29, Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, gave a thoughtful speech before the Brookings Institution<\/a>.\u00a0 She appropriately noted<\/a> that, \u201cparents know what is best for their kids. No parent should be denied the opportunity to send his or her son or daughter to a school with confidence that he or she can learn, grow and be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sad fact is that most parents and their children are trapped in their neighborhood public schools.\u00a0 Administrators and teacher unions have failed, consistently, to respond to the cry for responsibility and accountability.\u00a0 For example, in Chicago, the teacher\u2019s union stood in the way<\/a> of educational reform, preferring to keep things the way they were.\u00a0 But, those ways have failed the city and her residents<\/a>, badly.\u00a0 \u00a0According to the Illinois Policy Institute, \u201cForcing students to attend schools that routinely fail them is wrong and can leave scars that last well into the future. They need immediate relief, not broken promises about how things will change for the better five or ten years down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traditional public schools, and their state government clients, stand in the way of educational choice<\/a>.\u00a0 As Donald Trump Jr. remarked during the Republican Convention<\/a>, \u201cour schools used to be an elevator to the middle class; now they\u2019re stalled on the ground floor. They\u2019re like Soviet-era department stores that are run for the benefit of the clerks and not the customers, for the teachers and the administrators and not the students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many states have recognized that another option is necessary.\u00a0 Many have opted to allow charter schools to fill the educational void.\u00a0 Charters are public schools held to the same standards as traditional public schools, but unlike the failing public schools, are subject to closure if they do not perform.\u00a0 In North Carolina, Charter schools have outscored their traditional public school peers<\/a> in 12 out of 13 demographic categories.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, parents and state government officials in communities with a preponderance of minorities are supporting school choice<\/a>.\u00a0 The Department of Education has heard their concerns and has responded.\u00a0 In the proposed 2018 budget<\/a>, the present administration has increased spending for charter and private school education.<\/p>\n

DeVos noted in her speech that one parent believed the situation so dire that she had an \u201cinalienable right\u201d to choose for her child an educational alternative that worked in order to receive a decent education.\u00a0 DeVos\u2019 words imply necessity, \u201cThere is no time to delay when a child\u2019s educational future is at stake and all patience at repairing the broken system has been met with denial.\u201d<\/p>\n

As many parents in poor communities know, they need a choice so that their children might escape the stranglehold foisted upon them by the traditional public school system.\u00a0 Freedom and liberty demand that these parents have options available through school choice \u2013 \u201c\u2026a fundamental right too long denied to too many kids,\u201d as DeVos declared.<\/p>\n

\n

Dr. Erik Root is Senior Policy Analyst with The Roger Bacon Academy.\u00a0 Dr. Root\u2019s Ph.D. is in Political Science, and he has held positions with the John Locke Foundation and was Professor of Political Science at West Liberty University.\u00a0 Dr. Root also advises on authoring curricula in civics and government for the Academy and is a contributor to the American Spectator and American Greatness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday March 29, Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, gave a thoughtful speech before the Brookings Institution.\u00a0 She appropriately noted that, \u201cparents know what is best for their kids. No parent should be denied the opportunity to send his or her son or daughter to a school with confidence that he or she can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,7,8,9],"tags":[24,35,37,65],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-k-12","category-learning-and-education","category-politics","category-politics-nc","category-politics-us","tag-charter-schools","tag-elementary-education","tag-erik-root","tag-roger-bacon-academy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}