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n October 17, the

Vermont Anti-Racism

Action Team (VARAT)
held a press conference to
announce its decision to demand
legislation that would afford
school choice vouchers to stu-
dents of color. Since that time
the organization has met in
coalition with organizers from
other marginalized groups
(lgbtqia, disabilities, low
income) to broaden the legisla-
tion to include all marginalized
students. .
VARAT agrees with the

' Vermont Supreme Court’s asser-

tion in Brigham (1997) that
“education is a fundamental

obligation of the State.” VARAT.
further agrees with the Vermont A

 ‘g,\Al,!,.1y...,.should the

 

afford it. We have school choice
for families who can afford to
pick up and move to the neigh-
borhood of their choice. The
people who don’t have school
choice are the ones who need it
most — the least advantaged, the
"poorest, and the most disenfran-
chised members of our society.
Why should they be shackled to
one school? Why shouldn’t they
be able to choose the school that
best suits their needs?

There is something very
paternalistic about a society that
says, “We will let the rich, the
wealthy and the powerful have
choices, but the weak and the
poor cannot be trusted with
choice; we will have to decide
what is best for them, we can’t
trust them to choose for them-
selves; they will all go to the
schools we design for them and
the schools we tell them to go
to.” But if your family has
_ money then you can decide what

such a system.”

Since our press confer-
ence, we have received both
positive responses and reactions
against the voucher system.
VARAT hopes to hear from
many more Vermont residents
on this issue.

Many called in or

  . “education is best for yourselves.

the poorest,

and the most
disenfranchised

members of oursociety
‘be shackled

to one school?

Supreme Court that “the distri-

I bution of a resource as precious

as educational opportunity may
not have as its determining force
the mere fortuity of a child’s
residence. It requires no particu-
lar constitutional expertise to
recognize the capriciousness of

5 If we are going to break
the cycle of racism, homopho-
bism, ableism, and poverty in
these United States, we have to
empower people. We have to
empower victims of racism,
homophobism, ableism, and
poverty with the tools to break
that cycle. Money is power.
Choice is power. Education is
the most powerful tool of all.
We want what is best for our
children — not what some group
of bureaucrats tells us is best for
our children. We want the power
to shape our own lives and our
own future.

emailed in about several points.

Don’t be afraid to talk about
Celeste Washington’s case.
Why should a young African-
American / Irish-American girl
have to go to a school where she
has to listen to name-calling and

We do have school choice in
the United States. We have
school choice for the
Rockefellers and the DuPonts.
We have school choice for any-
one with pockets deep enough to

racial slurs like “oreo,” “zebra,”
“faggot,” “kyke,” “spic” every
day? Why should her parents
have to pay out of their own
pocket to find her a healthier,
better education, when they are
already paying taxes for her
education? Why is it that we
have laws on our books to stop
that behavior but it takes four
years to go through the court
system — and even then — even
when a judge like the one in
Celeste’s case says, “The behav-
iors in the school were offensive
enough to deprive a student of
colorof a decent education” —
why is it our courts won’t do I
anything until we “prove the
school administration is deliber-
ately indifferent to that behav-
ior”? We have to prove “deliber-
ate indifference”? That is outra-
geous!

Transportation-is-a-problem
argumqpt. It was a problem for
Celeste’s parents. But it was bet-
ter for them than leaving her in
that hostile environment. Are
they better off with a choice or
with no choice? Transportation
is always a problem for the
poorest and weakest in our soci-
ety. Should we say to a single
parent “your children can’t have
healthcare because transporta-
tion is a problem”?

Choice will take the best stu-
dents out of the worst schools
and make them that much..
worse. First, that is not what has
happened in Milwaukee and
Cleveland and other places that
have given choices to students.
Just the opposite has happened.
The worst schools have begun to
clean up their act so they can
hold onto their students and
keep theirjobs. But today there
is no incentive for the worst

   

schools to do anything. Those
schools are monopolies. Their
students are chained to the
school and the school gets paid
even when they are not doing a
good job.

' The poorest and worst schools

and the smallest schools won’t
have enough money to survive
— they’ll lose students and
have to close. If theschools are
so unsafe that enough students
want to leave so that they won’t
be able to stay open — and if 1
those schools refuse to shape up
because of school choice — then
I wonder if they should remain
open.

I have devoted the last 30 years
ofmy life uprooting racism at
every front. Nowhere is the
struggle more tragic or strewn
with casualties than in our pub-
lic schools. For the young
Latino/a, Asian, Native
American, African-American,
gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgen-
der, questioning students and
their allies, and students with
disabilities — students who are
“different” — the scars of racism,
classism, ableism, and homo-
phobism that are inflicted on
them as children or teenagers
are scars that not only rob them
of the full joys of youth, but
they are scars that, in many
cases, might deform their lives.
Racism, homophobism, clas-
sism, and ableism in schools‘
deprives our childrenof the full
benefit of the education they
need, deserve and have every

.right to demand. V

Pazj Wadley-Bailey is an
African—American lesbian and
the volunteer Director of the
Vermont Anti-Racism Action
Team. She lives in Montpelier.

  One-Street

cont’d from previous page

Trevorton, and central

’ Pennsylvania, and Hinesburg,

queer youth in Vermont, and to

Common Roads, caring for the
queer youth of Central
Pennsylvania. Oh how I wish
someone had been there in .the
1950s and 60s — in
Pennsylvania, in Port Trevorton,

and Vermont.

As 2003 came to a
close, I was sending off contri-
butions to Outright Vermont, to
help care for the well-being of

everywhere.

Sometime I will try
again to be in touch with Joey. If
he is gay, I hope he too has
found a way to come out, to live
a good life. And I do still want

to know if my childhood gaydar
was working all those many
years ago. V

Bill Lippert lives with his part-
ner Enrique in Hinesburg.