… we’ll highlight this item from the Durham Herald-Sun:
DURHAM — Choice was the key word at the Partners for Educational Freedom in North Carolina forum Tuesday night.
The organization hosted “Parents and Children First: A Forum for Equal Opportunities in Education,” at King’s Park International Church attended by several hundred people.
At the forum, guest speakers spoke on the need for parents to have the ability to pick the school their children attend.
The organization’s president, Darrell Allison, called Durham Nativity School, the “best kept secret in Durham” and a “diamond in the rough.”
Students from Durham Academy helped emcee the event and introduced the speakers.
The first speaker, Osco Gardin Jr., a pastor from Monroe, started off the evening with some statistics.
“Nationwide, even statewide, we know that less than 50 percent of African-American males in public school get a high school diploma. We know that there is more than a 50 percent probability that those who fail to get a high school diploma will be incarcerated,” he said.
He said he is not against public schools, but as a former educator he learned several things about public schools.
“The public school system is not working for everyone,” he said. “If you keep doing the same thing and expressing different results that’s called insanity.”
He went on to say that if given the choice, parents would select the best school for their child.
Former public school teacher Deanna Randle also spoke at the event. She compared a 401(k) and the economy to a child who is struggling in school.
“That parent, unlike the 401(k) envelopes and Web sites they can choose to ignore, has to open up the door every day and see the despair on that child’s face,” she said.
Randle also said that when new curriculum changes are adopted, a student can’t go back to third or fourth grade and get that new curriculum.
“That time for them is lost. It’s gone. They took a gamble and they lost,” she said.
The article goes on to discuss Pat McCrory’s speech at the forum, including his call for lifting the state’s charter school cap and trying new tactics for providing education to special-needs students.
The need for school choice and competition should be a familiar theme to readers in this forum, as should the potential benefits of special-needs education tax credits.