As top 2020 Democratic candidates unveil plans to curb or reverse the spread of charter schools, many Black and Latino voters are asking why their voices aren’t being heard, according to a New York Times report.
“As a single mom with two jobs and five hustles, I’m just feeling kind of desperate,” Sonia Tyler told the Times. “They’re brilliant; they’re curious. It’s not fair. Why shouldn’t I have a choice?”
Tyler is seeking to enroll her children in a suburban charter school outside Atlanta, joining many other parents who have found in charters a lifeline to escape failing public schools. But Senators Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) have put out plans to defund charters, while South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg and former vice president Joe Biden have both publicly expressed skepticism about charters.
In front of the studio that held the Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta last week, more than 300 school-choice proponents chanted, “Our children, our choice” and held up signs such as “Charter schools = self-determination” and “Black Democrats want charters!” The next day, charter-school parents disrupted Warren’s speech on racial inequities at Clark Atlanta University with similar chants, and a black mother even confronted her about whether Warren sent her children to private school.
Warren said she had sent her children to public school, but failed to mention that her son attended an elite private school from 5th grade on.
Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, has argued that charters are a ploy to “privatize” education, a sentiment echoed by Warren in her public opposition to any federal funding for the schools. Both propose dramatically increasing funding for public schools in order to achieve better educational outcomes. – READ MORE