Good Schools, School Choice, and African-American Education

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"...every group that wishes to see conflicting interests resolved reasonably, or is wise about the conditions under which it enjoys its own freedom, must be profoundly concerned with the state of freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of inquiry and teaching, freedom of press and other forms of communication, freedom of cultural opportunity and development. For in large measure intelligent moral choice depends upon them."
--Sidney Hook (1902-1988), disciple of John Dewey, and champion of pragmatism and democracy

School Choice: 'It's About Children, Stupid'

(NNPA) -- It's time to take on the teachers' unions. The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are pursuing a political agenda that stands between our children and a good education. What the union bosses couch as educational reform is just corruption, designed for their self-serving political agenda, not to help children.

Former Congressman Floyd Flake refers to what the public school system is doing to poor and minority children as "educational genocide." Affluent parents rightly choose to send their kids to schools that are clean, safe, and promise rewards for academic achievement. Children in disadvantaged communities go to schools that are crumbling, dangerous, and scream, "Despair! There is no future to be found within these walls."

It's time for Black ministers and parents to tell the NEA and the AFT to "Let our children go." The only educational reform that is showing real, measurable success is school choice. Programs that offer low-income parents the opportunity to choose where their children go to school, through scholarships or vouchers have delivered results. Low-income and minority children who participate in these programs get a better education. A recent study conducted by Harvard University's Program on Education Policy and Governance and Mathematical Policy Research, Inc. found that after only one year, low-income New York City students in second through fifth grades who received vouchers, scored higher in math and reading tests than a control group.

The Washington Scholarship Fund in the District of Columbia provides school choice scholarships to nearly 1,300 disadvantaged parents. However, when the fund announced it was accepting applications, over 7000 parents called. It is clear that low-income parents are demanding the opportunity to give their children a quality education.

In some cities, as many as 40 percent of public school teachers send their children to private schools, but the unions want to deny low-income parents the same choice. If poor children cannot attend a good school, they have no hope of participating in the American dream.

Yet, the NEA and the AFT are spending millions of dollars, to deny low-income parents the fight to choose where their children go to school. They fought Milwaukee's school choice program all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. They have misled some ministers and Black organizations, convincing them to ,oppose school choice. The unions don't want low-income parents to choose where their children go to school because schools that don't educate will have to close their doors. That is as it should be. Education is not about protecting union power. it's about giving our children a future.

In the past, education was the means for African Americans to overcome the obstacles to success and prosperity. Today the greatest obstacle facing Black children in America is the education system itself. It is time for parents to take on that system and the unions that control it.

The Samaritan Project has launched an effort to organize Black ministers and parents nationwide to fight for the right to choose where our children go to school. Step one is to tell the union bosses to "Let our children go."

We are going to hold union leaders accountable for their anti-children activities. It is time to make education work for our children instead of enriching a few fat-cat union bosses.

(Bishop Jackson is national president of the Samaritan Project, dedicated to solving America's social ills through faith, personal responsibility and racial reconciliation. For more information, contact the Samaritan Project at P.O. Box P.O. Box 15301 Chesapeake, Va., 23328 or phone 757-546-8815)

This site features a frank presentation of issues facing parents, taxpayers and schools in reforming schools in the twenty-first century. Good Schools promotes good schools, and explains what is necessary to achieve good schools. We are convinced that good schools can be obtained only with sound curriculum, which does not include the teaching of Darwin's theory of origin, or Darwin's theory of evolution. We believe that local school boards need to be empowered, and the influence of teachers' unions ought to be limited to labor-related issues. Teachers' unions should have no say in curriculum.

We are convinced that the teachings of Darwin, particularly Darwin's teachings on evolution, and Darwin's theories on origins, ought not be taught as fact. Darwin and Darwin's theories are not generally accepted by contemporary physicists and cosmologists, and, therefore, Darwin and Darwin's theories ought not be accepted whole-cloth by our schools of education, and ought not be presented as fact in public schools.

Because Richard Dawkins has set himself up as the number one defender of Darwin and Darwin's theory of evolution, we will go to some length explaining Dawkins' Darwin defenses, and we will do our best to explode Dawkins' Darwin defenses.

We seek to show from Darwin's own hand that Darwin, and Darwin's theory of evolution, are racist at the core. Darwin was a racist, Darwin's theory of evolution is racist, and Darwin's theory of origins is racist.

We further seek to show that Darwin's theory of evolution is not scientific. We show that racism, more than science, was behind Darwin and Darwin's theory of evolution, and Darwin's theory of origins.

Some of the terms commonly used on this site are: Darwin, Dawkins, schools, public schools, education, gun control, teachers, John Dewey, Littleton, racist, racism , school choice, African American, Sidney Hook, evolution, and Mike Carrier.

Bottom line--good schools require work. Good schools do not just happen. We need good schools, if we are to have a good nation.