By Kaleem Caire, President/CEO, Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO)
Utter the words “school choice” in 2002, and most people who have at least a limited knowledge of K–12 education think “school vouchers.” Yet, beyond vouchers, have emerged to give parents more educational choice for their children, including charter schools, home schools, magnet schools, private scholarship programs, and the growing number of virtual/on-line schools. While “vouchers” are a legitimate mechanism of manifesting parents’ rights to choose the best educational environment for their children, these words often evoke the image of racist southern Whites in the 1950s and 1960s who espoused school vouchers as a means to create private academies for their children in defiance of desegregation efforts.
The word “voucher” as applied to education is rooted in the thoughts of Milton Friedman, the former University of Chicago professor and 1976 Nobel Prize winner for economic science, who in his book Capitalism and Freedom (1963) stressed strong support for capitalism and advocated for a free market solution to maintaining a robust economy and strong government. He applied his solution to monetary policy, politics, racial discrimination, and education, among other things. Some people often point to the struggles of countries like Chile in South America and their failed efforts to implement and maintain a stable education system while using the guidance of Friedman and his colleagues. It is these fears that often drive the opposition to school choice.
However one may feel about school vouchers, comparing the 1950s and 1960s voucher movement to the current movement for school choice among African Americans and other non-traditional supporters of such efforts is extremely shortsighted and worthy of historical and contemporary review. The struggle for equal opportunity in education has been central to the struggle of African Americans in the United States since the 19th century. Within that struggle, there exists an enduring quest for educational freedom and the right of African Americans to determine the best education for their children.
In his book The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 (1998), Dr. James Anderson took a critical approach to evaluating the education of Black children in a political, cultural, and economic context. In doing so, he documented a great deal of information about Black America’s struggle for educational freedom and equality. Dr. Anderson found that during the period of reconstruction in the South, African Americans believed that the education of their children should be publicly financed. But most objected to sending their children to government-controlled schools or schools sponsored by missionary societies.
To explain further, the Freedman’s Bureau, which was created in 1868 by the federal government to facilitate the transition of former slaves into the social life of American society, was an early provider of education to free Blacks. The Bureau advanced many strategies to implement government-sponsored education programs throughout the South.
However, instead of flocking to these new training schools, documentation produced by Freedman’s Bureau surveyors prior to the 1890s revealed that more than 85 percent of Black families refused to send their children to government and mission-sponsored schools.
After years of legalized slavery and disenfranchisement at the hands of southern Whites and widespread discrimination in northern states, Black parents were suspicious of White America’s intentions to educate their children, and understood the related consequences of having their schools managed by White leadership. Education was as political then as it is now, and the general politics of Black education among America’s elite in the late–19th century was educating Blacks for production, not equal citizenship.
While the mostly religious missionary societies were primarily invested in educating Blacks for social integration and humanitarian reasons, the White elite of the North were more interested in educating Blacks to help forge their interest in advancing the development of industry and order in the South. This dichotomy of interests resulted in various compromises being made as the nation’s power structure determined the purpose and scope of educating Blacks. Such decisions grossly limited Black education to the cultivation of knowledge and ability in the skilled trades.
Understanding the limitations and constraints they would endure in schools they did not control or have an equally vested interest in, most Blacks believed it would be more advantageous to educate their children within the safety net of their own communities. Creating their own schools also gave them the opportunity to choose how their children would be educated and what they would learn. It has been well documented by historians that the education Black Americans provided for their children was designed, as best they could, to educate children for political, social, and economic advancement [primarily in the South]. Black schools attempted to instill within their students values, knowledge, and a set of skills that were critical to address the needs and desires of the Black community.
As controversial as it may sound in 2002, if we recall the words of historian, author, and educator Carter G. Woodson, in his book The Miseducation of the Negro published in 1933, he eloquently stated concerns of many Black Americans during his time:
History shows that it does not matter who is in power...those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they did in the beginning....When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his “proper place” and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.
Contrary to popular belief, the Black community was deeply committed to providing a high quality education for its children. As such, Black leadership was primarily focused on obtaining suitable facilities, quality educational materials, teacher training, and adequate financial support, not government or outside control. When and where the government refused to provide such resources or to do so equitably, Black communities often overtaxed themselves to provide the best education possible for their children in the schools that they maintained themselves. And many provided education to children through church-sponsored schools, Sunday schools, Black independent primary schools, and a handful of secondary schools.
The desire for community-controlled public education continued in the mid– to late–20th century, even after the Supreme Court’s decision to end segregation in education in the historic case, Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas (1954/55). The 1960s and 1970s saw the development, expansion, and advocacy for Black-controlled freedom schools (some taught academics, others taught only “organizing for freedom” strategies) in the South and community schools in the North. Blacks in Missouri, Louisiana, and Georgia fought very hard to maintain control over their schools, but many soon gave in as schools were closed and Black children were sent to White schools...and without their former Black teachers.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and historian Michael Fultz, in his research on Black educators, found that while school desegregation was a moral victory for the country, such efforts contributed to a reduction of 39,000 Black teachers and 13,000 Black administrators between 1955 and 1979. As opportunities for teaching in a school system dominated by white leadership began to erode, as Black schools were closed, and as new opportunities in other professions became available, the teaching of education in the Black community was no longer a primary career option. Moreover, at the time desegregation efforts took root, Blacks lacked sufficient political power or influence to shape desegregation policies of most southern and northern communities. The equality of educational opportunity that was sought by Blacks through the Brown v. Board of Education case was therefore significantly compromised and replaced with bussing programs that took Black children out of their communities—sprinkling them largely among white students whose morning rarely included a 45-minute bus ride to school.
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of Black churches establishing schools to address the lingering underachievement nightmare among Black children. National groups such as the National Council of LaRaza and Aspira have also begun developing charter schools in highly populated Latino communities throughout the country. Religious groups such as the Nation of Islam and the American Muslim Mission have continued to provide independent education to Black children in urban communities across the country. More parents, including a growing number of parents of color, are deciding to educate their children at home.
Instead of looking at these developments as new, it is likely more appropriate to view them as a continuation of African Americans’ efforts to secure the best education for their children. School Choice may be a relatively new term, but the purpose and desire of parents to have the power to choose the best educational environments for their children is as old as the education debate itself. But in all of the discussion about school choice, one thing has held constant, most parents want what’s best for their children, and African Americans, along with many others, are coordinating and organizing efforts to accomplish this goal.
Resources
Anderson, James D. Education of Blacks in the South: 1860–1935. Asheville, N.C: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. (366 pages, ISBN: 0807842214)
Fairclough, Adam. Teaching Equality: Black Schools in the Age of Jim Crow. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 2001. (144 pages, ISBN: 0820322725)
Jones-Wilson, Faustine C., Charles A. Asbury, Okazawa-rey, and Michael Fultz, eds. Encyclopedia of African American Education. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. (584 pages. ISBN: 031328931X)
Kaestle, Carl F. Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780–1860. New York: Hill and Wang Publishers, 1983. (266 pages. ISBN: 0809001543)
Watkins, William H., and Robin D. G. Kelley. The White Architects of Black Education: Ideology and Power in America, 1865–1954. New York: Teachers College Press, 2001. (240 pages, ISBN: 080774042X)
The Meantime Volume 1 Number 2