An alarming new ACLU report out of Pennsylvania confirms all the reasons why Black parents are calling for more school choice and more Black families are homeschooling than ever before. The report of Allegheny County suggested that: 1) The schools significantly underreported the number of students either arrested or referred to the police, and 2) students here are more likely to be arrested than students elsewhere in Pennsylvania. And sadly, these arrests or referrals are disproportionately Black students and students with disabilities.
The nationwide education equity coordinator for the ACLU and a co-author of the report argued that the missing data raised serious concerns about whether students were being protected from discrimination in this area. But the question of protection goes even further. When data is missing, it’s hard to know whether students are being “overcharged” or whether the school is trying to hide how unsafe the environment is. Based on the ACLU report, often both the assailant and the victim are students. No matter the situation, the school administration's dishonesty is harming the students and the learning environment in Allegheny County. School systems can’t argue that we should hold off on changes until we have more data when the data the system produces is false. Instead, students need change right now.
This story immediately brought to mind a December opinion piece written for the Hechinger Report by a woman of color and mother of 4. She described the urgency she felt for school choice policy. In her piece, she likens government-run policing to government run schooling and argues they both need a major overhaul. In describing the racial disparities present in public schooling she wrote,
I agree that systemic racism was foundational in developing the U.S. public school system and policies, but I balk at the idea that Black parents should be forced to stay in the system while they wait for change. While public school systems continue to operate in ways that neglect or outright harm the education of Black children, they also actively block the avenues of choice to which Black parents want access outside of the public system. Black parents should be afforded the ability to exercise their agency in choosing the placement and mode of their children’s education.
What about Black families in Allegheny County? Should they be required to send their children to this school system? Here’s more food for thought. Recently, the Democratic Party of Michigan wrote a controversial statement on Twitter that was soon after deleted, but it gets at the reason so many parents feel distrust towards government-run education programs. The statement read that parents “have the option to choose to send their kids to a hand-selected private school at their own expense” but that the purpose of public education is to teach them “what society needs them to know” (see image right).
This data coverup by the Allegheny school system is teaching parents a lesson that too many of them already know. If they can’t afford a private school, they are learning that they are voiceless, powerless, and should be fearful of their school environment in Allegheny County. For all these reasons, from mismanaged data to unsafe schools and goals that are less about students and more about a supposed “greater good,” this ACLU report out of Pennsylvania is just more evidence that we need school choice now more than ever before!