Views
Growing Up Gay in a One-Street Town
School Choice for Marginalized Students
School Choice for Marginalized
Students
by Paij Wadley-Bailey
On
October 17, the Vermont Anti-Racism Action Team (VARAT) held a press conference
to announce its decision to demand legislation that would afford school
choice vouchers to students of color. Since that time the organization
has met in coalition with organizers from other marginalized groups (lgbtqia,
disabilities, low income) to broaden the legislation to include all marginalized
students.
VARAT agrees with the Vermont Supreme
Court's assertion in Brigham (1997) that "education is a fundamental
obligation of the State." VARAT further agrees with the Vermont Supreme
Court that "the distribution of a resource as precious as educational
opportunity may not have as its determining force the mere fortuity of
a child's residence. It requires no particular constitutional expertise
to recognize the capriciousness of such a system."
Since our press conference, we have received
both positive responses and reactions against the voucher system. VARAT
hopes to hear from many more Vermont residents on this issue.
Many called in or emailed in about several
points.
We do have school choice in the United States.
We have school choice for the Rockefellers and the DuPonts. We have school
choice for anyone with pockets deep enough to afford it. We have school
choice for families who can afford to pick up and move to the neighborhood
of their choice. The people who don't have school choice are the ones
who need it most - the least advantaged, the poorest, and the most disenfranchised
members of our society. Why should they be shackled to one school? Why
shouldn't they be able to choose the school that best suits their needs?
There is something very paternalistic about
a society that says, "We will let the rich, the wealthy and the powerful
have choices, but the weak and the poor cannot be trusted with choice;
we will have to decide what is best for them, we can't trust them to choose
for themselves; they will all go to the schools we design for them and
the schools we tell them to go to." But if your family has money
then you can decide what education is best for yourselves.
If we are going to break the cycle of racism,
homophobism, ableism, and poverty in these United States, we have to empower
people. We have to empower victims of racism, homophobism, ableism, and
poverty with the tools to break that cycle. Money is power. Choice is
power. Education is the most powerful tool of all. We want what is best
for our children - not what some group of bureaucrats tells us is best
for our children. We want the power to shape our own lives and our own
future.
Don't be afraid to talk about Celeste Washington's
case. Why should a young African-American/ Irish-American girl have to
go to a school where she has to listen to name-calling and racial slurs
like "oreo," "zebra," "faggot," "kyke,"
"spic" every day? Why should her parents have to pay out of
their own pocket to find her a healthier, better education, when they
are already paying taxes for her education? Why is it that we have laws
on our books to stop that behavior but it takes four years to go through
the court system - and even then - even when a judge like the one in Celeste's
case says, "The behaviors in the school were offensive enough to
deprive a student of color of a decent education" - why is it our
courts won't do anything until we "prove the school administration
is deliberately indifferent to that behavior"? We have to prove "deliberate
indifference"? That is outrageous!
Transportation-is-a-problem argument. It
was a problem for Celeste's parents. But it was better for them than leaving
her in that hostile environment. Are they better off with a choice or
with no choice? Transportation is always a problem for the poorest and
weakest in our society. Should we say to a single parent "your children
can't have healthcare because transportation is a problem"?
Choice will take the best students out
of the worst schools and make them that much worse. First, that is not
what has happened in Milwaukee and Cleveland and other places that have
given choices to students. Just the opposite has happened. The worst schools
have begun to clean up their act so they can hold onto their students
and keep their jobs. But today there is no incentive for the worst schools
to do anything. Those schools are monopolies. Their students are chained
to the school and the school gets paid even when they are not doing a
good job.
The poorest and worst schools and the smallest
schools won't have enough money to survive - they'll lose students and
have to close. If the schools are so unsafe that enough students want
to leave so that they won't be able to stay open - and if those schools
refuse to shape up because of school choice - then I wonder if they should
remain open.
I have devoted the last 30 years of my life
uprooting racism at every front. Nowhere is the struggle more tragic or
strewn with casualties than in our public schools. For the young Latino/a,
Asian, Native American, African-American, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender,
questioning students and their allies, and students with
disabilities - students who are "different" - the scars of racism,
classism, ableism, and homophobism that are inflicted on them as children
or teenagers are scars that not only rob them of the full joys of youth,
but they are scars that, in many cases, might deform their lives. Racism,
homophobism, classism, and ableism in schools
deprives our children of the full benefit of the education they need,
deserve and have every right to demand.
Paij Wadley-Bailey is an African-American lesbian and the volunteer
Director of the Vermont Anti-Racism Action Team. She lives in Montpelier.