Washington – Young students are best suited to wage the battle for public education—and against the expansion of charter schools—and large-scale integration of the nation’s public schools should be a paramount goal in the fight.
Those were the major arguments advanced over the weekend by Shanta Driver, an activist attorney who played a pivotal role in the 2003 Supreme Court case that upheld race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions.
“We’ve found that everywhere that we’ve organized as a national organization that the group of people that are most prepared to fight for public education, for advancing desegregation in public education and against charter schools are students themselves,” said Driver, national chair and spokesperson for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights & Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary, more commonly known as BAMN.
In a roughly hour-long talk that touched on topics that ranged from what she portrayed as racial pitfalls in standardized tests to the “arrogance” of philanthropists involved in education reform, Driver made her remarks at the 2012 Save Our Schools People’s Education Convention. The conference drew more than 100 public school educators and largely opposed charter schools and tying the testing regime to teacher and student evaluations.
Driver called for getting children involved in “militant” protests to fight racism, inequalities and unfairness in the public schools.
“They’re the least jaded,” Driver said. “It’s their lives that are on the line, and they are fearless in conducting walkouts and marches and rallies in defense of public education.”
After Driver stated that mobilizing students was the best way to mobilize their parents, a Diverse reporter asked Driver what she would say to critics who believe it’s wrongheaded for public school educators to politicize children to support their agenda and to oppose charter schools, which are regarded by many as being as much about liberation as those who share her ideology.
