Giving parents school choices for their children that go beyond the traditional neighborhood school can be empowering to parents and academically beneficial to children, two national school-choice advocates said Tuesday.
"No child ought to be trapped in a place that doesn't work for them because their parents don't have the capacity, the resources to find a better place for them," Howard Fuller, distinguished professor of education and director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University and a former superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, told a town hall-style audience of about 100 at the Mosaic Church.
Fuller and Patrick Wolfe, distinguished professor of education policy and 21st Century Endowed Chair in School Choice at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, were the featured presenters at the event organized by The Reform Alliance attended by about 100 people including legislators, parents of school-age children and community and education activists.
The meeting, one of many events being held across the state and nation this week in observance of National School Choice Week, was a preamble to today's 11 a.m. National School Choice Week Rally at the state Capitol. Fuller and Gov. Asa Hutchinson will be among the rally's speakers.
In Arkansas about 14,000 students attend public schools outside the school districts in which they reside and another 14,000 are enrolled in independently operated, publicly funded charter schools. That's about 6 percent of the state's 479,000 public school students. The state has 238 traditional school districts and 25 independently run charter school systems.
Wolfe said that his research and that of others on school choice "overwhelmingly shows positive effects on participating students and their families, as well as on the traditional public schools that come under pressure to produce better results for their families."
The best national studies on public charter schools, Wolfe continued, indicate that their students benefit in reading over traditional school students and are on par with traditional public schools in math. The results are most positive in large urban areas where there are multiple charter schools from which to choose, and most positive for students who come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
There are similar academic benefits for students who participate in programs in which state funds are used to pay private-school tuition, Wolfe also said. Arkansas is in the second year of such a program that is limited to students who require special-education services. That program has attracted about 200 participants this year, said Wolfe. Nationally, the private-school choice students graduate from high school and enroll in college at higher rates, he said.
Fuller called children the most precious gifts from God and said they must be educated in different ways to meet their different needs and fulfill their potential. Education should be a goal on which Democrats and Republicans can unify.
State Rep. Mickey Gates, R-Hot Springs, who is white, asked Fuller who is black, for advice on how to build support for school choice-related legislation among black lawmakers who often represent areas of the state with poorly performing traditional public schools.
Fuller acknowledged that there is distrust among black lawmakers for white colleagues because of the history of segregation and because of divided views on other issues such as health care and higher minimum wages. He also noted that black lawmakers not only represent students but also black adults who work in traditional school systems and have found those jobs to be their pathway to the middle class.
"It is a complex issue," said Fuller.
Fuller also told the audience that as a former public school superintendent, he can see both sides of an issue. In traditional schools, he said, he found employees doing phenomenal jobs in dysfunctional systems.
He concluded that traditional public education is a delivery system for education and not quality education in and of itself.
"It was not created by God so we can change it and come up with a different delivery system," he said, calling for a radical transformation of conventional public education.
He also said that many adults have become very good at providing 20th-century education programs that are inadequate for the 21st century, and that many of today's students are "bored out of their minds" and are eager and capable of new ways of learning.
Hal Harris, a principal at Little Rock Preparatory Academy, said that in his 10 years as a charter school educator he has only taught three white children among the black and Hispanic children. Harris questioned how to address the perception that school choice facilitates racial segregation.
Fuller responded that he is opposed to legally mandated racial segregation and supports integration. He also supports effective education of black students.
"If you are able to provide the education that no one else is providing, why do you have to apologize because it is all black children," Fuller told Harris, pointing out that historically black colleges exist with little opposition from the general population. "If you are educating these kids, don't let people put you on the defensive because they are all black."
Community historian and activist Annie Abrams asked Fuller how families who have been poorly educated for generations can make sound choices for their children.
"I'm confident that ... we have always been able to make good decisions, but we did not have the power to do so," Fuller responded. "When you expand people's capacity, people will rise to the occasion.
National School Choice Week is held annually in January to raise public awareness of education choices available to children, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, online learning, private schools, and home schooling.
Metro on 01/24/2018