Georgia State Rep. Mesha Mainor (D-Atlanta) defies party leaders by supporting school choice, like most other black Americans.
By Eileen Griffin
Georgia state Rep. Mesha Mainor (D-Atlanta) says Democrat leaders prioritize illegal immigrants over black American children.
“We’ll send $1,000,000 to the border for immigrant services, but Black communities, not even a shout-out,” Mainor told Fox and Friends. “I’m sorry, I don’t agree with this. I’m not backing down and I’m actually just getting started.”
Mainor, who is black, said schools in her district have single-digit levels of proficiency in math and reading. Black children in these schools are not getting the attention they need to improve educational outcomes.
“We are acting like we care about Black people, and in my opinion, we are doing very little for Black people, and when you’re talking about something like school choice, it really helps Black people. It helps children that are disabled,” said Mainor.
“I’m tired of hearing certain folks in my party chant Black Lives Matter during Election Years but are NOWHERE to be found any other year,” Meinor said in a tweet. (emphasis in original)
Across the country, school choice has made huge gains, The Daily Signal reports. More states are making educational freedom a priority.
North Carolina Surveys
Parents have been supportive of school choice and expansion of tax credits for private schools for many years. For instance, a 2020 study conducted in North Carolina by the Civitas Institute surveyed the popularity of educational freedom by race.
While school choice is well-received among all racial groups, it is even more popular with African-American/black families than white or Hispanic families.
When questioned about North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers for private schools, respondents supported the initiative by a margin of 67 percent to 22 percent. Support among blacks was 76 percent.
Civitas has sponsored opinion surveys on educational freedom for a number of years, and they show greater support among blacks for private school choice than any other racial or ethnic group, wrote Bob Luebke, director of policy at the Civitas Institute.
“A review of recent Civitas polls suggests strong minority support for school choice is not a recent development,” wrote Luebke. “In 2012, EdChoice and Civitas teamed up for a statewide school choice poll. Results showed minority support for vouchers eclipsed white support, 66 percent to 56 percent, but trailed whites on support for charters 67 percent to 62 percent.”
Luebke also cited polls conducted in 2015 and 2017 with results indicating a strong desire for school choice with, again, black families showing the highest level of support.
“A 2015 Civitas Poll asked a similar question regarding the Opportunity Scholarship Program,” wrote Luebke. “Results had Black support at 80 percent, whites at 64 percent and other at 78 percent.”
“Lastly,” Luebke wrote, “a January 2017 Civitas Poll asked respondents about support for the Opportunity Scholarship Program. When divided by race, 80 percent of Blacks supported the program, Asians (74 percent) and 68 percent of whites. The same could be said for minority support for charter schools, where Black (74 percent) and Asian (76 percent) support again bested white (68%) support.”
Educational Savings Accounts
A recent nationwide YouGov poll also showed strong support for educational freedom, in the form of Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs), The 74 reports. Results indicated that 70.3 percent of black parents were supportive, compared to 59.1 percent of white parents.
Despite the strong support for educational freedom among parents, the Democratic Party has thwarted efforts at the federal level to expand opportunities to more American families.
Given the opposition of Democrats, pursuit of educational freedom has to take place at the state level, says Chris Talgo, editorial director of The Heartland Institute, which publishes Heartland Daily News, on Townhall.
“For the most part, the school choice debate has been limited to the state level, with Republican-led states embracing school choice and the vast majority of Democratic-run states doubling down on defending and protecting the public school monopoly,” Talgo wrote.
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