Social Justice

 Thousands of supporters across New Jersey ralled at that state's capitol recently for legislators to support the Opportunity Scholarship Act, which would allow low-income and working class children from the state's lowest performing school districts to receive scholarships to attend private school.

Nationwide, parents are waging the fight for more educational options for their children.

There is no way to get around the data. To date, North Carolina public schools have shown a significant achievement gap for low-income and minority students. 

According to a recent survey by the good folks at Public Policy Polling, more North Carolinians consider education to be the state's top issue. Despite all the talk about the economy, the percentage of voters naming education as their top issue has more than doubled since last year. Increased public awareness of educational issues could be one explanation for North Carolina's recent spike in private school enrollment.

In March, Judge Howard Manning announced that the state of Halifax County schools was akin to academic genocide. While the state's focus turned to solutions for Halifax, many more North Carolina school districts continued to quietly fail their students.

In 1995, the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC-Chapel Hill partnered with Union Baptist Church in Durham to launch The Durham Scholars Program, an initiative aimed at improving academic performance among low-income and minority children in some of Durham's poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods.

Last week PEFNC was featured in The Winston-Salem Journal in a guest column titled "School choice movement can be tool for social justice."

PEFNC Board Member John Bryson submitted the letter below to The News and Observer last week, addressing the need for fair accountability measures for alternative charter schools:

In response to Keung Hui’s “Would-be charter schools” column on April 20, it is worth noting the actual shut-down rate of alternative charter schools serving at-risk students.