Public school choice: Implications for African American students

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 1994 by Peterkin, Robert S, Jackson, Janice E

Key components of school reform mentioned by Payzant could be facilitated by controlled choice, including teaching and learning, curriculum, assessment, accountability, school governance and decision making, public engagement and support, integrated services, resources, strategic planning, and school-to-work transition. Payzant appropriately stresses the integration of choice with other components of school reform to discourage the proposition that school choice alone will be sufficient to effect positive change in the schools.

In combination, school choice may be the engine that assists school reform but alone it is clearly insufficient to meet the challenge of creating U.S. schools of the future.

(2) Community Commitment. Community commitment to and local political endorsement of a system of controlled choice must be built on

sense of equity and a belief in the educability of all children, not on the desires of one constituency or for the purpose of attracting private school students to the public schools. Adoption of controlled choice must also be based on a communitywide belief that all children can learn given the appropriate conditions, sufficient resources, well-trained teachers, and supportive parents and community members. It must also extend to an agreement by the community that controlled choice should be used to bring together students of different backgrounds, races, and classes.

(3) Access, Access, Access! Equal access to all schools in a system of controlled choice is essential. Information on programmatic opportunities must be made available to all parents in ways that enable them to make sound school selections. Often, parents in poor and minority communities (especially those in which English is a second language) do not receive the same information as majority communities, nor do they receive that information in the same manner or in a timely fashion. Such "information isolation" must be eliminated.

The Cambridge model for reaching these parents features the establishment of a Parent Information Center (PIC) and parent liaison positions at each elementary school and school-within-a-school . The Cambridge PIC is centrally located in one of the system's elementary schools. It is an informal setting where parents can have a cup of coffee, participate in parent educational programs, discuss their aspirations for and problems with their children and the schools, and determine which school they wish their children to attend. Parent liaisons help provide information on the system's schools to parents at the face-to-face level, contacting parents on a regular basis with information on school events and teacher concerns. In addition, they serve as advocates for parent concerns in individual schools. They help school officials in translating official documents, report cards, and other school information for parents for whom English is

second language. Along with school administrators and teachers, parent liaisons visit neighborhood laundromats, welfare offices, housing projects, churches, community agencies, and other nontraditional locations to fully inform poor and minority parents of opportunities afforded them and their children under controlled choice.