Welcome to A Voice4Choice and the Personalized Learning movement. I am honored and thrilled to officially launch this very important website as a key resource on behalf of the millions of parents and students who stand united to uphold and defend their fundamental right to choose the public school that they deem will best meet their children’s needs for college, career, and adult readiness. We are a voice to uphold and defend parent and student public school choice, and for the more flexible, students first Personalized Learning model for the growing number of students for whom a rigid, classroom-only model is not a good match for success!
Our country’s founding Declaration of Independence and Constitution guarantee “We the People” the fundamental, inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights, particularly liberty, are currently under relentless attack by some in the status quo education establishment who seek to undermine and destroy parents’ and students’ fundamental right to choose the public school option of their preference. The sinister and self-serving purpose of these representatives of the status quo? Eliminate all public school choices that are beyond the absolute control of the status quo establishment and reassert an absolute monopoly over you, the people. Translation: Destroy real parent and student public school choice! Limit choices to only those that may be absolutely and fully controlled by the status quo education establishment special interests!
Primarily targeted in the ongoing, aggressive and negative propaganda attack campaign by some in the status quo education establishment are public charter schools. Why? Public charter schools represent real public school choice for parents and students. Most public charter schools are public schools of choice that are operated independently as non-profit organizations and are beyond the immediate and absolute control of the status quo education establishment. District-operated public schools, on the other hand, are public schools that students must attend if they reside within the boundaries of each local school district. The vast majority of our United States have intentionally created the public charter school option to enable parents, students, teachers, and communities to have public school alternative options that are operated independently of school districts. Public charter schools have been intentionally created to give parents and students the power of public school choice! Why? Because research study after study after study confirms again and again that from 30-50% of all students in district-operated public schools are either being failed outright, are falling several grade levels behind, or are severely lacking in basic math and communication skills required for 21st century college and career readiness. The truth? This ongoing systemic failure of the status quo education system is an epidemic-level tragedy that is largely being kept secret from the greater public eye.
Millions of parents and students nationwide are taking matters into their own hands and choosing, of their own free will, public charter schools as their preferred public school choice to help successfully guide their children to college, career, and adult readiness. In California alone, the total number of students who have chosen public charter schools has exceeded 600,000, with another 175,000+ on public charter school waiting lists. This mass exodus away from the status quo education establishment threatens the establishment to its very core, as the self-serving motives of absolute power, control, and financial gain (money) over the public education system is what predominantly drives many of those that represent them. It’s time to give the power to choose back to “We the People” and to each of our local communities. Let parents, students, and communities, through their power of liberty and choice, determine which public schools don’t survive and which public schools thrive!
Know those in the status quo education establishment by their actions, not their words. Many pay lip service to the charter school concept, stating repeatedly. “We’re not against charter schools”. Yet, their actions speak volumes otherwise, all revealing a coordinated and sinister plan to demonize, villainize, and delegitimize public charter schools, and to squelch, undermine, and sabotage public charter school growth and expansion everywhere they can. They could instead choose to spend the millions upon millions of public tax dollars they use to attack public charter schools (yes, your tax dollars folks!) on improving their district-operated schools to try to retain the students they are failing and losing in the first place. Wouldn’t that be a more appropriate way to spend your tax dollars? They simply choose not to, perhaps because it is easier to try to destroy the competition rather than to work hard on improving themselves, or perhaps because they are truly not interested in putting the needs and best interests of students first. You’ll have to ask them. The bottom line? Undermining public charter schools using your public tax dollars is a direct attack against parents’ and students’ and communities’ public school choice, and against parents’ and students’ and communities’ fundamental rights to liberty and freedom.
“We the People” have the power and freedom to stand united and to stop this aggressive assault on the basic rights of freedom and liberty in our country, and to assert the truth that a wide variety of choices in public education, both district-operated and public charter school operated, are essential to ensure more equal access and opportunities for all students in all communities to have a more equal chance to succeed in life, and that these choices are essential to drive higher quality, better academic outcomes, and better prepared students and American citizens for the challenges of 21st century college and career pathways.
If you agree, choose to take action now. Defend your personal, fundamental rights and those that are in the best interests of “We the People” to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! We invite you to join our efforts, join other students first and public school choice action groups, or take positive action on your own. It’s time that we all stand united to put students FIRST!
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