School choice really is the civil rights issue of our time

There is no more central issue to the modern civil rights movement than education. School choice — the ability of Black Americans to select educational options that help them exit a cycle of poverty and systemic racism — is key to ensuring the next generation of Black students are given equal opportunity and an equal chance to succeed.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) faced a barrage of criticism in early 2024 after declaring school choice the civil rights issue of our time, facing critics who called his comments “ignorant” and “stupid,” as though equality in education were not a cornerstone of equality across the board. 

As a Black American whose life was changed by school choice, I agree with Cruz. The right to learn, the right to a foundational education, is a central part of the modern civil rights movement, just as it was a central aspect of earlier American civil rights movements.

Black Americans have fought an often bloody crusade to be given the right to a quality education. Our forefathers in American civil rights movements knew, as we know now, that there can be no true racial equality or justice until Black Americans are given an equal opportunity to learn.

Our American education system is unfortunately defined by disparities based on race and economic status. Our public schools trap children in a one-size-fits-all system that is not designed to recognize individuals’ needs, often leaving behind those who struggle to overcome these racial and economic disparities. And that’s a feature of the system, not a bug. Public schools were once among the primarily mechanisms of segregation, used as tools to stifle Black minds and curb Black success.

Today’s public school system is a product of its earlier iterations. Far from offering Black Americans an equal right to learn, it stifles their minds and blocks their success. It fails to nourish pupils and creates an entire class of undereducated Black students, perpetuating the cycle of systemic racism.

School choice can change that. Give Black families the ability to select an education that is right for their children, and you dramatically shift the playing field, offering Black students an unprecedented opportunity to obtain a quality education, customized to their needs and focused on their success.

Fully 73 percent of Black American voters support school choice. White Democrats, on the other hand, perpetually insist that the status quo will magically fix itself someday, and the inequalities of our education system will disappear, perhaps with an unspecified increase in funding, or a change in testing, or improvements in public transportation. 

This will never happen. Meanwhile, enough children’s futures have already been sacrificed. We’re tired of waiting.

Education reform has stalled, and the promise of Brown v. Board of Education, decided some 70 years ago, is now hopelessly mired in bureaucracy, even as the school-to-prison pipeline continues to affect Black students at alarmingly disproportionate rates.

Many Black families are already taking matters into their own hands, choosing options outside of public education, and often at great cost. Non-white students make up a vastly disproportionate share of those using existing school choice programs. For example, 70 percent of students in public charter schools nationally are Black. Blacks are the fastest-growing group of homeschoolers.

A commitment to equality in education means a commitment to supporting the educational alternatives these families are seeking out on their own. It requires support for programs that give Black families economic freedom and flexibility to make their own choices in how they educate their children. It requires providing a means to exit a permanently failing system that perpetually imperils Black success and Black lives. 

It means supporting school choice.

School choice is a beacon of hope and opportunity, necessary to civil rights, to the point that Martin Luther King III has stood with parents proclaiming school choice as the civil rights issue of our time. Hundreds of Black school leaders in our network agree.

This Black History Month, it’s important to recognize that often, those publicly and prominently embracing civil rights are opponents of school choice. Although they claim to be strong proponents of equality and civil rights, they are often the ones standing in the way of the clearest solution to systemic inequalities: an educational system focused on the success of every single student.

It is time to place the well-being of our children above the agendas of special interests. We honor the legacy of past civil rights victories and stand on the shoulders of these giants as we fight for equitable education today.

Denisha Allen is senior fellow at the American Federation for Children and founder of Black Minds Matter.