Howard Fuller’s career includes many years in both public service positions and the field of education. Dr. Fuller is a distinguished professor of education and founder/director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. —Frederick Douglass
The Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) is quickly becoming one of the nation’s most effective voices in the struggle to improve the education of America’s Black children, particularly those from low-income families. BAEO was organized in December 1999 by 50 dedicated and committed Black people at a meeting held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC. The organization was officially launched with a press conference at Washington’s National Press Club on August 24, 2000.
BAEO is bringing together the ideas, aspirations, energies, and experiences of four generations to accomplish its mission of supporting parental choice in order to empower families and increase educational options for Black children. BAEO targets low-income and struggling working-class Black families because their children suffer the most from the dysfunctional schools that plague urban communities. BAEO supports a variety of options including charter schools, home schooling, innovations in traditional public schools, public/private partnerships, scholarships to private schools, tax-supported vouchers, and tuition tax credits.
BAEO is establishing a network of chapters across the country. Local chapters are the foundation of BAEO. They are bound to the national board and the national office by BAEO’s bylaws, mission, and priorities. The organization’s goal is to form 35 chapters with a total membership of at least 2,000 by March 2005. BAEO is well on its way to reaching that goal. Currently the District of Columbia and 20 cities in 17 states are at various stages of completing the necessary work become official chapters.
The local chapters will ground the organization in the real-life needs of families struggling to gain power to impact the education of their children.
The local chapters will ground the organization in the real-life needs of families struggling to gain power to impact the education of their children. The national organization is providing technical assistance and information to support local chapters. Although chapters will adhere to the mission and bylaws of the national organization, each local chapter will determine which of the parental options it will develop and implement in its local community. From time to time, there will be national efforts led by the national office that will call for support from local chapters..
BAEO uses the metaphor of struggle because the history of Black people in the United States is grounded in a long-standing battle for equality and justice. BAEO believes it is unjust to tolerate a situation that leaves many of our children stranded in an educational wasteland.
The promise of America is equal opportunity. BAEO believes this cherished right is unattainable for poor Black children if:
- Black children continue to lag behind white children in all indicators of academic achievement
- Low-income parents—mostly of color—have less access than middle- and upper-income parents—mostly white—to high-quality teachers and schools
- Low-income parents are less satisfied than middleand upper-income parents with schools available for their children
Our children are our most precious resource. It is our responsibility to love them, nurture them, and protect them. It is also our responsibility to ensure that they are properly educated. Without an education, they will have no real chance to engage in the practice of freedom: the act of transforming their world.
The current systems of K–12 education work well for many of America’s children. However, for a significant number of our children, the current systems do not work well at all. A high percentage of these children are poor children of color living in urban areas. For these children, the old educational strategies and institutional arrangements are not working fast enough or reaching deep enough to prepare them to be productive and socially responsible citizens.
While the world is becoming an increasingly complex place in which to live and work, too many of our children are not learning the essential skills needed to compete in the world of work and to be productive citizens.
Tens of thousands of children in America are receiving an inferior education. Far too many of them are children of color. While the world is becoming an increasingly complex place in which to live and work, too many of our children are not learning the essential skills needed to compete in the world of work and to be productive citizens.
Black children continue to lag significantly behind their white peers in academic achievement; they are kicked out of school in disproportionately higher rates than their white peers; they are frequently misidentified as learning disabled; they are disproportionately denied access to gifted and talented programs; and too many graduate from high school unable to read and write. The economic and societal effects of this educational morass on Black families and Black communities are staggering. Far too many of our miseducated undereducated youth turn to crime or drugs as a way of life. African- Americans now make up 50 percent of the US prison population, but only 13 percent of the entire U.S. population. Perhaps even more troubling, the Justice Department estimates that this year one in ten Black men will be in prison, and that at least one in seven Black men will have lost the right to vote, not fully participating in this democracy and thus not experiencing true American citizenship.
Regardless of this reality, many of today’s political leaders continue their staunch support for traditional public school systems that continue failing to meet the educational needs of our children. A common refrain is their insistence that America must “invest more in public education.” BAEO agrees! But BAEO believes there must be a redefinition of what makes public education “public.” As Dr. Kenneth Clark stated in his 1968 paper Alternative Public School Systems, “public education need not be identified with the present system of organization of public schools.”
BAEO believes it is necessary to develop new systems of learning opportunities to complement and expand the existing systems. An infrastructure is needed that will truly empower parents, allow dollars to follow students, hold adults as well as students accountable for academic achievement, and alter the existing power arrangements.
BAEO understands that there are no “silver bullets” or “magic wands” that will instantly improve education for our children. However, parental choice must be a key element in the strategy to improve education for our children. Parents, particularly low-income parents and working-class parents, must be empowered to make the best choices for their children’s education. The absence of this power means that many poor children will remain trapped in schools that more affluent parents, some of whom oppose parental choice, would never tolerate for their own children.
Income should not be the determinant of whether or not parents have access to the best educational environment for their children.
Black people have always been creative. They developed ingenious ways to resist slavery. For example, the spirituals reflected the pain of enslavement, but they also let people know when Harriett Tubman’s Underground Railroad had arrived. Innovative ways were found to fight Jim Crow. Activities such as sitins, jail-ins, boycotts, marches, and wade-ins spawned a social revolution that changed the course of American history. This creativity, our genius, and our resolve are now needed to embrace a new struggle that will ensure that all of our children obtain a quality education. Frantz Fanon said, “Every generation out of relative obscurity must discover its mission and either fulfill it or betray it.” Empowering working-class and poor families to be able to choose from high-quality educational options is this generation’s mission.
BAEO was created because we are outraged at the plight of Black children in America’s schools. Quality education is a necessary resource. It is vital to economic success, and it is the one true potential leveling factor in the United States. Black people must have access to quality education, public and private. Income should not determine whether or not parents have access to the best educational environment for their children. BAEO supports parental choice in education because all of our children deserve excellent schools—by any means necessary. It is our duty and our responsibility to demand more power for our families and better educational options for our children.
The Meantime Volume 1 Number 1