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Labor unions for school choice
Cesar Chavez (image from Wkimedia Commons). This is the latest post in our occasional series on the center-left roots of school choice. More than 30 years ago, liberal activists working to get a...
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A forgotten “freedom school”
Students picketed public schools in Blythe, Calif. when tensions between the Hispanic community and school district boiled over. The conflict led to the creation of a private school, Escuela de la Raza...
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‘Hippie school’ votes for school choice
Grassroots Free School offers traditional classes in core subjects, but attendance is not mandatory. The school allows students to direct their own learning. It also accepts tax credit scholarships for...
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Lessons from a school choice trailblazer
Civil rights activist Mary McLeod was a school choice pioneer, opening a private, faith-based school for African-American girls in Daytona in 1904. The state of Florida may honor her with a statue in...
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Racism, irony & school choice
Former student Ozell Ward stands in front of a historical marker of the Milner-Rosenwald Academy in Mount Dora, Fla. This is the latest post in our series on the center-left roots of school choice. The...
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Florida schools roundup: Turnaround plans, contract talks, safety and more
Turnaround plans: The Polk County School District’s plan to turn around five struggling middle schools is rejected by the Florida Board of Education. The board criticized the district’s plan to retain...
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Teachers unions evolved on magnet schools. Can they evolve on charters?
At a National Education Association convention in 1987, I was the floor manager for a new business item endorsing newly expanding magnet schools. Despite the strong support of then NEA President Mary...
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The NAACP, charter schools & school choice history
In the late 1990s, Rosa Parks and her foundation applied to start a charter school in inner-city Detroit. She wasn’t thinking about privatizing education; she was thinking about ways to lift up the...
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One man’s war on Florida’s desegregated schools
Black and white students in industrial class at the Orange Park school, 1898. Clay County Archives. “We do not refuse anyone on account of race,” Orange Park Normal and Industrial School principal Amos...
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Choice schools sweep Florida ‘Blue Ribbon’ winners
This year, Florida is home to four National Blue Ribbon schools, and all of them are schools of choice. The winners, announced today by the U.S. Department of Education, include a Miami-Dade County...
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The Sisters of St. Joseph
St. Benedict The Moor School, St. Augustine, Fla. Source: Wikimedia Commons. A century ago, three Catholic sisters in St. Augustine, Fla. were arrested for something the state Legislature had recently...
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William N. Sheats and pitfalls of democratic control of public education
William N. Sheats was, in many ways, the father of Florida’s public school system. He was also an ardent racist who declared war on a racially integrated private school in North Florida, which he...
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No, school choice isn’t a conservative plot
Karl Marx wasn’t a school choice guy, as far as we know. But the guy who wrote the definitive Marxist critique of American public schools is. He admits his initial resistance to school choice was...
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Betsy DeVos & black empowerment
Private schools have always been essential to black progress in America. As the author of a recent piece in The Atlantic wrote about Betsy DeVos and the African-American roots of school choice,...
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Annotating Think Progress
Today we are trying something new: annotating an article from a different blog, using Genius. Click on the highlighted portions below to read our comments on the article. You may need to have pop up...
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Betsy DeVos, Jimmy Carter and Democratic retreats on school choice
This is the latest post in our series on the center-left roots of school choice. Jimmy Carter once touted school vouchers, telling readers of Today’s Catholic Teacher in 1976: “While I was Governor of...
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School choice? Si, se puede!
“Gradually,” Cesar Chavez predicted, “we’re going to see an awful lot of alternative schools to public education.” (Image from Wikimedia Commons) Cesar Chavez, the iconic labor leader, would have been...
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When progressives went big for school choice
This is the latest post in our series on the center-left roots of school choice. In the 1960s and ‘70s, the American left cheered Freedom Schools and free schools, condemned education bureaucracies,...
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For school choice foes, a more complete history of vouchers and race
In the 1900's, Mary McLeod Bethune founded a private vocational school as an alternative for black students Florida had relegated to separate-and-unequal public schools. In the 1910's, a group of...
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For 83 years, a North Fla. private school helped black students excel
Far from the public eye, a North Florida private school for black students survived for 83 years against the odds. From its humble beginnings as a log cabin in 1868 until its closure in 1951,...
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