Fighting the Good Fight for School Reform

[Reprinted from Issues & Views Summer 1996]

"As long as politicians and bureaucrats who don't even know your child's name control the education money, they will decide what kind of education your child receives," says Vernon Robinson, who leads the drive for school choice in North Carolina. He says he is determined to see to it that failing government schools compete with other schools for the state's education dollars, and looks forward to the day when the public school system is "forced to treat all parents as valued customers." Education money must be taken away from what he calls "The Blob" (the education establishment), and put in the hands of parents.

As head of the North Carolina Education Reform Foundation, which he founded, Robinson promotes legislation that will tie state money to the child, so that parents will be able to choose between schools. He travels around the state, initiating forums on education, assisted by his loyal supporters--a multiracial and politically bipartisan coalition of parents and concerned citizens. He likes to call them "Robinson's Raiders."

In town after town, members of this coalition train "legislative action teams" to work with the media and to lobby elected representatives, in an effort to make prominent the issue of school choice. The goal is to get legislation passed so that tax funds can pay for vouchers that a child can use to attend a private, parochial or public school.

In general, blacks throughout the country have been weak supporters of school choice. Yet Robinson has been unusually successful in enlisting the support of growing numbers of North Carolina's black parents. He has won the approval of several respected black pastors, some of whom run academies where poor students are educated on shoestring budgets. Such academies could multiply, if legislation for charter schools is passed.

Charter schools are independent public schools administered by parents and/or a civic organization, not by school boards or teachers unions. A major goal of school choice advocates is to make it possible for approved groups or agencies to have access to the same funding source as regular public schools. Then, free of pressure from a multitude of bureaucrats, the charter school's directors would hire teachers of their choosing and allocate resources without having to submit to endless red tape, in order to purchase supplies and meet other needs of students. Charter schools of varying types have been authorized in 25 states and, by 1997, there will be about 350 in operation. Robinson would like to see North Carolina join these ranks.

Growing Black Support

In 1994, the North Carolina General Baptists, an organization of blacks, endorsed education reform at their annual convention. School choice advocates see this as a chance to bring an understanding of the choice message to greater numbers of black parents. Among several Resolutions passed at the Baptist convention were the following: "Whereas a large part of a generation and a half of children have slipped through the cracks of an increasingly unresponsive school system; Whereas citizens make choices, while subjects have choices imposed on them; Whereas the most effective public service performed by the African American Church were the Freedom Schools of the post-Civil War period, that made a slave population literate in under 30 years; Whereas many African American churches are actively establishing or planning to establish new Freedom Schools for the 21st century; Therefore be it resolved that the General Baptist Convention of North Carolina is on record supporting African American churches of all denominations establishing and operating Freedom K-3, K-5 and K-8 schools; Be it further resolved that this body go on record supporting the passage of legislation that ties money to the child and allows parents to choose the school that best meets their needs, so that children from all families may secure their children's future."

Additional church interest has been shown in the formation of the Interfaith Clergy Coalition for School Choice, whose members represent a variety of church congregations.

Last year, in Raleigh, at a public hearing on school reform, over 200 black parents packed an auditorium to express their opinions on two pending bills, that would give tuition assistance to children attending non-public schools. A majority favored the bills. As would be expected, mainline civil rights organizations and North Carolina's black politicians oppose Vernon Robinson and even the most moderate attempts to privatize education. The NAACP remains staunchly in the camp of teachers unions and public school bureaucrats.

Last year, Robinson rallied the directors of seven black private schools to participate in special tuition hearings at the state capitol, in order to "change the complexion of the school choice debate." The Challenger newspaper of Wilmington, North Carolina, reports that, "While the TV cameras were rolling," white liberal groups were seen opposing tuition grants to poor students, while "African American educators, parents and students supported the bill. Not a single African American who signed up to speak was opposed to the bill."

Tricks and Tactics

Working with his grassroots supporters, Robinson has helped to frame legislative bills and shape public policy. "Why," he asks parents, "should the education establishment respond to your concerns about your child, when they know you can't afford any other education options?" He claims, "If we create a market for educational services, we will get a better product at a lower price."

His words are like heart stabs to those who have most to lose in terms of position and power. Robinson has encountered all the wily tricks played by teachers unions to maintain the status quo. While working for legislation that would allow for the creation of charter schools, he was fought tooth and nail. When it looked like charter legislation was inevitable, the establishment changed tactics and, instead of fighting against charter schools, they introduced a charter school bill of their own. Their bill was designed to stymie the Robinson forces and restrict the provisions contained in the original charter school bill. This is a strategy that educational bureaucrats have applied in other cities, where they attempt to make charter schools no more than what educator Chester Finn calls "clones of conventional public schools."

A New Ally

Vernon Robinson is good at making the case for school reform and winning allies to his cause. His most recent ally is Centura Bank, which is headquartered in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. After a meeting with Robinson, the bank's directors agreed to help form a not-for-profit organization that would operate a charter school right on the bank's corporate campus. As if that isn't a radical enough commitment, the bank is now taking the reform message to other banks and urging them to help create a "private sector loan pool," to assist other charter school applicants.

Vernon Robinson's interest in school reform began in the 1980s, when, as assistant professor of Business at Winston-Salem State University, he was shocked by the poor academic preparation of most of his students. Here were youngsters who were hardly prepared to handle seventh grade work, and yet they had been passed along to college. It was then that the idea occurred to him to found a network of grassroots advocates, who would work to overhaul the public school monopoly. In spite of disappointments and setbacks, over the years his commitment has grown. He now holds a vision of charter schools becoming the main provider of public education throughout the United States.

For more information, visit North Carolina Education Reform Foundation on the web, or call (919) 781-1066.

Meanwhile, in Waco, Texas, Lester Gibson is fighting the good fight, while presiding over "Project Exodus." This is a movement to use legal means to create a new school district by detachment from an already existing one. Gibson decided he had had enough when both his son and daughter failed the state's basic skills test. When he learned how many other children also had failed, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Gibson's region is forced to take part in the old, familiar story, that is, black children bused from one part of a county to another, in order to desegregate white schools--with no visible benefits. In fact, when Gibson demanded to see the school district's test scores for all children, he discovered that, in 1995, 75% of black students had failed the basic skills test. This discovery led him to found Project Exodus.

Texas law allows for a neighborhood to "detach" itself by actually seceding from a school district. In this way, a new district can be formed. So, a black community could form a district that legally allows its children to attend local schools--thus putting an end to forced busing. Gibson set about arousing parents and other Waco residents of the urgent need to take control of an academically deficient school system.

He has become a County Commissioner and his wife is now on the school board. Although technicalities still stand in the way of the detachment plan, Gibson is hopeful that, with more supporters in positions of power, Project Exodus can succeed. Before a district can be split, it must have a minimum enrollment of students. Presently, the numbers for the projected district barely meet this minimum. Also, a referendum on the plan must be offered to Waco voters.

The district's school superintendent, who rejects the whole idea, calls it a "resegregation" plan, an epithet that will probably kill off public support. And, of course, the local NAACP and black city council members and members of the state's black legislative caucus have weighed in with their staunch opposition to Gibson. These civil rights proponents and black politicians have expressed the typical fears about creating a school district where all the children are predominantly of one ethnicity--a situation that such blacks consider normal for whites, but not for their own.

Although the prospects for widespread support of Project Exodus look grim at the moment, Lester Gibson continues to do his homework, by keeping up with the academic test scores of the district's children, and keeping the pressure on the school administration to improve grade performance in five particularly odious public schools. In spite of the technical hurdles still to be overcome, Gibson continues to enlist parents in the drive to take control of their children's education. He just might win the battle.

For more information, contact: Project Exodus, P.O. Box 648, Waco, TX 76703; (817) 757-5062.

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