Fuller leads group that will place ads in papers, teachers union critical

Washington - A national coalition of black educators, politicians and parents led by Howard Fuller announced Thursday its plans to run newspaper ads supporting school choice.

The Black Alliance for Educational Options, a new unit of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University, will launch its public information campaign Sunday.

Ads will be placed in the Washington Post as well as a number of community newspapers serving primarily black audiences, including the Milwaukee Courier, Milwaukee Times and Milwaukee Community Journal.

The nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association, immediately criticized alliance support for private school vouchers, an issue that divides the presidential candidates. Texas Gov. George W. Bush supports vouchers, while Vice President Al Gore does not.

Fuller and others maintained that the alliance is non-partisan.

"This is not about Democrats or Republicans," agreed alliance member Dwight Evans, a Democratic state representative from Pennsylvania. "This is about children."

Fuller, at a news conference, pointed to the disparity in academic achievement between blacks and whites as the principal reason for alliance support of a variety of reforms, including choice and charter schools, vouchers, private scholarships and home schooling.

He cited, as evidence of public school failure, recent ACT scores from Wisconsin that show college-bound white students scoring 22.5 compared with 17.4 for blacks. Fuller also highlighted surveys showing greater levels of satisfaction on educational matters among parents whose children attend private schools compared with those in public schools.

"We are here to declare war on this disparity in educational achievement, particularly as it relates to black children," Fuller said.

The ads and other alliance efforts will be aimed at expanding educational opportunities to lower-income black parents.

The alliance effort has particular relevance to Milwaukee, where parents now have more publicly financed education options than any place in the country. The programs are free, and state law mandates that virtually all who apply are accepted.

Fuller used as examples of the positive changes wrought by choice the Milwaukee Academy of Science, a new charter school and the first for-profit school in Wisconsin, opening in the former Sinai Samaritan Medical Center Campus, and Central City Cyberschool, another charter school, opening in a low-income housing complex.

Fuller stressed that the ability to choose private schools was not new, having long existed for those of moderate or greater incomes. "Choice is widespread in America unless you are poor," he said.

He added: "What's new here is that we want low-income parents to have the cherished, cherished opportunity that all of us in this room would fight for for our own children."

Another member of the newly formed alliance is Kaleem Caire, a 29-year-old educational consultant. Two of his children, Jabarl, 6, and Sekani, 5, will be enrolling at public schools in Shorewood Hills, a Madison suburb.

Caire said he wanted options on where he could send his children to school. "Just having one option is not working," he said. "It's hard convincing younger brothers that the (school) system works when so many of them fail."

Choice critics, however, assailed alliance efforts.

"There is no evidence that vouchers are improving public schools," said Kathleen Lyons, a spokeswoman for the National Education Association, which has 2.5 million members.

"Voucher programs are a false choice,"' Lyons said. "Private schools don't have the capacity, nor is there compelling evidence to suggest that students do better there. All you do with vouchers is siphon money out of public schools and give them to private schools."

Lyons added that improving academic performance could be accomplished by lowering class sizes, training teachers more effectively and offering programs aimed at low-income children.

"We know what works," she said. "And it isn't vouchers."

Fuller maintained that the alliance supported public schools, saying that competition from choice schools forces them to improve. He also predicted that the alliance would have critics, especially those who view the group as aligning itself with conservative politicians.

"We are prepared to be called names," he said.

But, in the end, denying parents the right to decide where their children are educated is "unacceptable, un-American and does not stand on the foundation of equal opportunity that is supposed to be the foundation of this country," Fuller said.

(Picture of BAEO ad, which ran in the Washington Post Democratic Convention Issue) As part of its campaign, the Black Alliance for Educational Options will begin placing advertisements similar to this one in newspapers.