‘School choice is not the enemy,’ says Charter advocate in Juneteenth message

True freedom must include the freedom to choose a quality education, says New York charter school advocate Dr. Paul Miller.

In a Juneteenth-themed op-ed published in the Rochester Business Journal, Miller wrote, “true freedom must include the right to choose a quality education.”

“We scream Black Lives Matter. But what about black minds?” he asked.

Black students who can’t afford private schools or to move out of the city are stuck in failing schools with “shrinking enrollment, struggling outcomes, and dwindling hope.” Yet many black legislators continue to vote against school choice, he said.

“They show up to Juneteenth parades but don’t show up to fight for better schools,” wrote Miller, who is black. “They wear cultural pride shirts but won’t support education that actually uplifts and empowers our culture.”

The solution, he said, is to “do better” by fighting “for our children, not broken systems (or) divisive politics.

“School choice is not the enemy. Ignorance is. And when we know better, we have to do better.”

Miller said current education systems work “exactly as they were designed to – to disenfranchise, disempower, and disconnect us.” He said teachers’ unions, and the politicians they support, are largely to blame. 

When elected officials side with unions and special interests over children, Miller said, “we must ask: ‘Who are they serving?’” While unions are not inherently bad, some had racist foundations and excluded black and brown workers to preserve jobs for whites, he added.