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For those who didn’t attend (or those who would like to relive the event), the video has been posted on the Show-Me Institute’s website. I encourage anybody who has even a passing interest in educational quality to watch and learn more about the issues that are facing U.S. schools today.

The video, which is also embedded below for your convenience, is a playlist consisting of eight separate parts. After each individual part has finished playing, the playlist should automatically load the subsequent part until the sequence has finished.

You may also choose to view any individual part on its own:

Part 1 (10:01) | Part 2 (9:59) | Part 3 (10:02) | Part 4 (9:53) | Part 5 (9:53) | Part 6 (9:50) | Part 7 (9:16) | Part 8 (1:47)

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Here’s an interview with Chavous that we’ve linked to before, in which he explains how school choice became such an important issue for him while serving on the D.C. City Council.

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Christopher J. Christie just decisively won New Jersey’s Republican gubernatorial primary, but had to veer away from his middle-of-the-road plan and venture into some traditionally conservative territory to do it, according to news accounts. Will that be a problem for him in the general election? Not necessarily. As NorthJersey.com’s Charles Stile observes, Christie’s ardent support for private school choice is not the polarizing stance it once was: these programs “once championed by conservative ideologues, are being embraced by urban Democrats.”

As we’ve been saying at the Center for Educational Freedom for some time now, the post-partisan age of school choice is well within sight, and draws closer every day. The last politicos to see that will find themselves on the wrong side of history, and the wrong side of voters in both parties.

We’ve seen this same phenomenon in Missouri, with prominent Democrats like Kevin Chavous (who is a partner at a law firm with offices in St. Louis and Kansas City) and Rodney Hubbard leading the charge to bring real educational choice to Missouri’s children.

Here’s an interview with Chavous, in which he explains how school choice became such an important issue for him while serving on the D.C. City Council:

And here’s part two:

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I was intrigued when I read the St. Louis Beacon‘s story on this event, because the reporter ignored the vast majority of the discussion in order to focus on what Ray Cummings, the panelist representing St. Louis Teachers Union Local 420, had to say, as well as one union member’s suggestion that many people in the room had adopted their education policies in order to secure donations from Rex Sinquefield. Nearly one third of the Beacon article is dedicated to the ideas expressed by advocates for the teachers union, and the remainder is, in my opinion, not particularly representative of the discussion.

The recurring theme of the panelists’ comments was that efforts to reform urban education must focus on the children, not the institutions. Kevin Chavous, cofounder of Democrats for Education Reform, passionately insisted that while for years we’ve been waiting for the public schools to come up with a solution, millions of African-American children have been passing through those buildings without being equipped to succeed in life. He invoked Malcolm X, saying that elected officials and parents have to be committed to getting their kids educated “by any means necessary,” whether or not it fits comfortably with the party line. Regarding the common argument that the problems of urban education cannot be solved with programs that help individual students, Chavous invoked Harriet Tubman’s perspective: When similar doubts were raised about the abolition of slavery, and the politicians kept talking about the big picture, she said she’d be out there bringing slaves to freedom, one at a time.

The Beacon article also neglected to describe Rep. T.D. El-Amin’s response when the questioner suggested that campaign donations were driving his interest in education reform. He pointed out that he’s been advocating school choice since long before Rex Sinquefield offered his support. Rep. El-Amin said that “selling-out” is when you adopt an opinion so you can get money, and that there is nothing wrong or questionable about accepting money because the donor agrees with an opinion that you have previously expressed.

All in all, Saturday’s panel generally agreed that urban communities — and particularly black communities — have to marshal the courage to speak out in favor of reforms that focus on the children. Several of the panel members said that they frequently hear people (especially black elected officials) say, “I understand and agree with what you’re saying, but I can’t say it myself.” The panelists said that school choice is this century’s frontier for civil rights, and that people have to have the strength of their convictions, to go out and make sure that their communities’ children don’t become part of the number that have been allowed to pass through the public schools without learning. That is the story that the Beacon‘s reporter should have told.

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One of the most common issues that I discussed was that of school choice. While many of the people I spoke to felt that their local public schools were doing the best they could, almost everyone I spoke to agreed that parents ought to have the opportunity to send their children to the best available schools — including public schools in nearby communities, or local private schools. Most also instinctively recognized that improving the education of their young people could help to attract more and better-paying jobs to their communities. The people I spoke to made it resoundingly clear that education is definitely an issue that is important to folks in rural Missouri.

In the midst of my trip, I had the pleasure of stopping in Kansas City to attend a celebration of Milton Friedman’s life and career. For those who don’t know, Friedman was a Nobel laureate who proposed school choice as the best solution for providing publicly funded education. In honor of his birthday, organizations across the nation hosted a total of 50 events to promote and celebrate his ideas. Here in Missouri, the Show-Me Institute co-hosted an event with the Kansas City Public Library at which Kevin Chavous, a nationally respected attorney and school choice advocate, discussed the importance of education reform in America. Nearly 100 people attended, and it was absolutely exhilarating to see so many people come out in support of improving educational opportunities for the children of this state.

I highly recommend that you check out the library’s video of this event, as well as Chavous’ recent book!

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