School Choice Warriors, take heart ! | Eastern North Carolina Now

    A recent court ruling has potentially opened the door to recognizing that parents need more choice in determining where to send their children to school.

    "It would be credulous to differentiate, for constitutional purposes, between a student whose teacher refuses to teach math and a student whose teacher fails to intervene when other students' harassing and disruptive behavior prevents her from learning it," according to the dissent. "In the latter instance, the instructional environment may be so disordered, tumultuous, or even violent that the student is denied the opportunity to receive a sound basic education."

    "This is precisely what Plaintiff has alleged in the instant case," Zachary added. "At this stage in the proceedings, Plaintiff's allegations must be taken as true, and the trial court did not err by allowing her the opportunity to produce a forecast of evidence tending to prove the same."

    In a nutshell, there were 3 students in the Pitt County elementary school who were repeatedly and consistently bullied in horrific fashion - for TWO YEARS. They notified their teachers and parents, and then complaints were made to the principal and school administration. Nothing was done to abate the bullying (by 4 students). Eventually, the 3 students were forced to transfer to different schools, but not before they were psychologically harmed and their grades took a dramatic plunge. The parents of the 3 children filed suit to allege that the NC Constitution's guarantee of a "sound education" for all North Carolina children includes providing them with a safe and proper learning environment, free from harassment and bullying. The NC Appeals Court agreed with the parents.

    This case reminds us that some school settings do not work for some students. It reminds us that teachers and school officials often fail our students. It reminds us that sometimes there is just too much going on in our school system for school officials to properly look out for the well-being of each student. And it also reminds us that sometimes with our new social justice norms and social engineering goals, teachers and school officials will sweep incidents under the rug hoping the problems will just go away. If parents had easier access to an accessible, affordable alternative, it's unlikely that those 3 children would have been forced to endure two years of abuse and sinking grades before finally making a move.

    One can't help but think that similar concerns about school learning environments motivate many parents. Those concerns likely influenced some of the thousands of NC parents who have enrolled their children in public charter schools, private schools, and homeschools. But parents should be alerted at the same time that many private schools have begun to go the same way as public schools. Taking the free "opportunity grant" money from Raleigh to move poorer students from public schools to private schools doesn't necessarily mean that well-intentioned students are moving to the private schools. In many cases, some are taking the money and moving simply to play sports or to boost their transcripts - without actually having to commit to doing the work. In my personal experience at a private Catholic school, the culture of cheating was far greater than anything I had seen in the public school system. And the level of troublesome conduct was just the same.

    Education needs to be about Education and nothing more. When you hear the term "diversity," get angry and ask what positive outcomes it provides (because it certainly isn't diversity of thought and opinion). When you hear about "social justice," understand that this is simply the term used when educators need to "dumb down" the curriculum so that the lower proficiency scores of certain students don't stand out so clearly. I believe that if a parent genuinely wants his or her child to get an honest and rigorous education, without the indoctrination, without the gender issues, and without all the other bull that progressives are trying to bring in thru the schools, then that is exactly what they are entitled to.

    This is no doubt a very sad case..... This case of the 3 abused Pitt County elementary students offers yet another reminder of the importance of promoting parental school choice.

    Read the full article "Court Ruling Helps Make the Case for Expanding Parental Choice" in the Carolina Journal -