The Education Forum: Charter Schools and Desegregation in Louisiana

THE EDUCATION FORUM

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CHARTER SCHOOLS AND DESEGREGATION IN LOUISIANA
By Larry Galloway, Parent, J. K. Haynes Elementary Charter School
Testimony before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution
October 14, 1999

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I come before you today as a voice for all the parents and children of East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana. I speak for them and them alone. Their voices have been silenced and mostly unheard ever since the persons involved in the desegregation lawsuit - the NAACP, the school board's lawyers, and the plaintiffs' lawyers - became totally focused on desegregation, when education and equality should have been foremost.

The parents' voices were not heard when our children were being bussed. The parents' voices were not heard as our children attended unequal schools. The parents' voices were not heard as our children sat in raggedy, run-down, leaking, and cold schools. The parents' voices were truly not heard as our children were being used as pawns for the political and educational factions in Louisiana and across this nation.
Our children have been and are the victims in this horrendous tragedy. Through all of this, we parents have been very tolerant, understanding, quiet, willing, and non-repulsive to the school board, the NAACP, the Justice Department, other players in the desegregation lawsuit, and other individuals that claim to be the speakers and representatives for our children.

We parents have sacrificed several generations of our children for the educational process and are currently not being given any choices or opportunities to save the next generation. Louisiana ranks 49th in the nation educationally, and the outlook does not look promising to us parents. The Louisiana education experts have a plan - a two-year plan and a ten-year plan - to turn around this educational nightmare. But instead of focusing on education, the NAACP, the Justice Department, and the school boards have concentrated on desegregation for the past 45 years.

During that time, we have waited on the lawyers for the completion of the desegregation lawsuit's legal action. We've waited for the development of charter schools. We've waited for the state to give us a choice to seek out and provide the best education possible for our children. And please let us not forget that we parents have waited on the school boards to give us equality. This is all we wanted for our children.

But, what were we given? Nothing. Nothing for our patience. Nothing for the most personal sacrifices that any individual could make, their child. Nothing for our dedicated diligence to comply with the system. We were given a sliver of hope with scaled-back bussing, a half-hearted return to neighborhood schools, and the development of the three charter schools in Baton Rouge, along with several others across the state.

And now, a group of lawyers from the NAACP, the Justice Department, the school boards, and the plaintiffs in the desegregation suit, all stand in the way of education and equality for our children. As a result, we -- the parents of those children - are now forced to save our children from the very individuals that are supposedly in the business of helping them. It frightens me and parents across the state of Louisiana that we must now do whatever we can to protect our children from those we have trusted during the 43 years of the desegregation lawsuit. We see pulling our children from failing schools and a failing school system as necessary to protect our children, and our right. We are not alone in standing up for this right, as all across the United States parents move from the inner cities to the suburbs for better schools, better school systems, and better administrations that will hear their voices, work with their wishes, and most of all, give them equality, education, and hope for the future for their children.

To stand up for these rights, we parents have attempted to have a voice by intervening in the desegregation lawsuit. But due to the arrogance of the lawyers, the Justice Department, the federal judge, the school boards, the NAACP, and others involved in the case, they have chosen to ignore the parents and our requests. Their concern is now, and always has been, desegregation, not education. So, when do we get back to the business of educating our children? Well, respectfully, we parents of Louisiana must now stand up to those that choose not to hear our voices - just as parents from across this great nation are doing. We must stand up to those who use our children as pawns for ridiculous "long range" educational plans. Our children are suffering educationally, right now. We, parents, need your help expeditiously.

We parents, see charter schools, vouchers, and school choice as a vehicle to saving our children. The desegregation lawsuit and its 43 years of attempting to desegregate the school system has been instrumental in restructuring the thinking of educational administrations. But now due to demographics and parental movement from the inner city to the suburbs, the type of desegregation we first hoped for seems unlikely. Now, instead, the desegregation lawsuit just stands in the way of education - not just for African-American children, but for all children. The children of Baton Rouge have been unable to attend the schools of their choice. Charter schools have not been allowed to open and help thousands of students.

As a parent of children in the Gifted and Talented program and the J.K. Haynes Elementary Charter School, I chose to pursue these special programs, because I saw that they were special and that my children would benefit greatly from their participation. But what about all the parents that do not have the chance to pursue these special programs? What about the parents that cannot save their children from the wall being placed in front of them by the desegregation lawsuit and all the lawyers involved in it?

If you look at the chart with the accountability scores, please notice the bottom 28 schools of the 49 schools listed in the "Academically Below State Average" category for the East Baton Rouge Parish schools. These schools are either at or below the 50% school performance score. These schools are also all considered predominantly African-American schools according to the standards set forth in the East Baton Rouge desegregation lawsuit and consent decree.

This sends a truly powerful message to the parents in Baton Rouge, along with those in Ascension, Livingston, and East Feliciana parishes, which are our surrounding parishes. These parishes have become major exits for parents seeking to save their children from the desegregation lawsuit, a failing school system, and, as you can see by the performance scores, failing schools.

We, the parents, have been placed on notice by these scores that it is time to get involved in the process and protect our children. I ask these questions. If the desegregation lawsuit was truly doing what it was meant to, would our children be so educationally unfit? Has desegregation truly been the savior for our children, or the hindrance that is depriving them of an education? Should the desegregation lawsuit have focused its attention on making certain that equity and equality were first and foremost, not inequality or bussing? Most of all, does the language of the desegregation lawsuit from 43 years ago apply to us now in 1999, with all the unforeseen changes that have taken place since the filing of the initial lawsuit?

We parents want to get involved. We parents want our children to go to our neighborhood schools. We parents want to be recognized as a part of the solution and not the problem. We parents want the desegregation lawsuit to stop destroying our children's education. We parents want the school boards to get back to the business of educating our children, and most of all, back to the business of providing to our children in the public schools the best possible education that can be provided.

For this, we need charter schools. We need vouchers. We need those persons interested in doing what's right for public education to hear our voices and our plea for help in this monumental task. We do not want to destroy public education. We do not want to become another government program.

We just want, plain and simple, to educate our children - and quickly, before we lose another generation. We just want educational equality throughout the schools. This is our plea to you and others on this committee. This is our parental plea to the national education experts and the Louisiana education experts that choose not to hear the parents' voices. This is our plea to those who choose to make and base their decisions according to political education groups with power, time, and tremendous financial support.

We parents have been unable to create that kind of influential base. We placed our trust, hope, desires, dreams, and our most precious commodity - our children - in the hands of those running the desegregation lawsuit - the school boards, the Justice Department, the NAACP, and the original plaintiffs. Were we, the parents, wrong for placing the fate of our children in the hands of those that guaranteed us that desegregation would mean better schools and better educational opportunities for our children? Were we, the parents, wrong to make a personal deposit of a child into this bank and expect a greater return - a child equipped with a high school diploma, with the capability of attaining a college degree, a law degree, to become a doctor, or lawyer, a representative, a senator? Were we wrong to hope for that, or were we simply dedicated parents, trying to educate and protect our children?

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Mr. Galloway is a parent in East Baton Rouge Parish. He has one son at the J.K. Haynes Elementary Charter School and another son in the Gifted and Talented program at McKinley Magnet High School.

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