Civil Liberties, Social Conflict, & "Public" Education

Opinion:
"Biggest victims of teachers unions' anti-choice crusade are minority kids" By Dr. Alan Bonsteel,Orange County Register, June 10,2005
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown vs. Board of Education, declared that racially segregated, "separate but equal" public schools were unconstitutional. Frustrated by the lack of progress in Brown, one year later - in a case that came to be known as "Brown II" - the Supreme Court declared that our public schools were to be desegregated "With all deliberate speed.".(16.1 kb)

Web Article:
"Due & Forfeit: The Absorption of Charter Schools Charter schools are here to stay. Now the danger lies in the embrace of traditional opponents" By Michael Antonucci,Education Intelligence Agency , 2002
I have possess‘d your grace of what I purpose; And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn To have the due and forfeit of my bond: If you deny it, let the danger light Upon your charter and your city‘s freedom. (60 kb)

Speech:
"Rescuing School Choicefrom its Friends" By John E. Coons,NYC Mayors Conference, December 12, 2000
This generation has witnessed many proposals for school choice, some few of which have now taken root in law and practice. It is time to consider what it is that states such as Wisconsin and Ohio have understood that remains opaque to their sisters. Though the ten year old Milwaukee program is effective and popular, its vital insight has so far eluded the genius of those who draft statewide initiatives. In many states, including my own, the initiative will remain the indispensable constitutional tool for achieving parental choice, for it alone can assure both the identity of private schools and the long-delayed burial of Jim Blaine next to his kinsman Jim Crow. But, before another state commits the fate of school choice to some instrument that even die-hards like me feel bound to reject, serious reformers must clarify their common objective. What exactly is that larger tent of policy that could accommodate both the market enthusiast and the indispensable mainline voter.(37.5 kb)

Article:
"Populism and Parental Choice" By John E. Coons, First Things, November 2000
Civility is breaking out in a body contested sector of the culture war. For thirty years armies of authors have savaged one another over whether society should assure have-not families free access to all schools. The claims made for and against subsidized school choice have been extravagant, which is good reason to welcome the publication of serious and balanced works—four of which I will consider in the course of my argument—from mainstream intellectuals. These voices, though tentative and discordant, all respond to the insight emergent among the urban poor and working class—that parental choice is an issue of civil rights and basic justice.(51.6 kb)