Toward Black Educational Choice: Introduction

• In Event: Toward Black Educational Choice

Abstract

Visible Now: Blacks in Private Schools, edited in 1988 by Drs. Slaughter and Johnson, focused on two broad questions: First, why were Black parents sending their children to private schools in the 1980s, and second, what were the experiences of the attending children? The 1988 book reported research on these broad topics through that time period, with contributors acknowledging an increase in the percentages of African American children attending non-public schools since even before the 1983 Nation At Risk report. The present symposium continues to focus on the results of parental and family educational choice, but emphasizes research conducted since the 1990s, including follow-up research at some of the same private schools, as well as newer studies that address African American children’s schooling experiences in both the school types originally depicted in Visible Now and other contemporary alternatives to neighborhood public schools.

At this time in African American history there is a profound and deep need for information that can inform the educational choices of persons who parent and teach African American children and youth, as well as for the youth themselves. A quarter century of emphasis on standards reform initiatives in public education has not produced unequivocal benefits to African American public school students. There is considerable dissatisfaction with the supposed benefits of educational policies associated with high stakes testing, and zero-tolerance policies that seem to encourage push-out and dropout student behaviors. Not surprisingly, families are increasingly seeking and participating in available alternatives to traditional schools, many of which include independent private, parochial, and charter schools. Together these educational choice patterns can be viewed as contemporary initiatives attempting to address identified problems and critiques of tax-free public and neighborhood schools that African American families prefer to avoid by choosing against them. Families expect the newer K-12 initiatives to be improved and enhanced “pipelines” to higher education. How effective are these educational initiatives and related school choices for African Americans today? What does available research tell us about the strengths and challenges of the alternatives being pursued? How are policymakers and educational administrators adapting to the increase and diversification of school choices by African Americans? We believe these issues warrant discussion in this interactive symposium.

This symposium addresses the contemporary issues surrounding the school choices of families of African American school children. Both quantitative and qualitative educational researchers in desegregated private school settings, contemporary charter schools have examined these alternatives. The consequences of the school choices of families charged with the education of their biological or adoptive African American children are examined in this symposium from the perspectives and attitudes of the participating youth, and their parents.

Author

• Diana T. Slaughter-Defoe, University of Pennsylvania