Pro-Choice Means School Choice
Gloria Romero knows what it's like to tackle the public education establishment. While representing East Los Angeles in the California Senate, she crafted the state's "parent trigger" law, allowing parents to force failing schools to convert to charter programs. Romero, now the California director of Democrats for Education Reform, suggested three arguments for school choice that appeal to people on the left.
1 Education is the civil rights fight of our era. The minority base of the Democratic Party—Latinos and African Americans—has been disproportionately affected by ZIP code–based education and the proliferation of schools as dropout factories. Aren't we supposed to be the party that advocates for the poor?
2 Whatever happened to being pro-choice? As a Democratic woman, I support the right to choose. Mothers and grandparents should be able to choose what's best for their kids. Parents should be the educational architects of their own children's futures.
3 Icons of the Democratic Party have embraced school choice. Past Democratic presidential nominees George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey supported school choice. Increasingly, the parents' rights movement understands that the status quo, which favors special interests, needs to be rejected. I'm not about to sacrifice the Democratic Party to a false notion that our families need to be chained to geographic turf. School choice is best for our kids and our communities.