School Choice Saved My Life | 5 Minute Video
Poor students deserve just as good an education as rich students, right? So why are so many stuck in failing public schools? Denisha Merriweather, who benefited from school vouchers, explains the problem and the solution.
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Script:
Public schools aren’t the answer for everyone. They weren’t the answer for me. Schools in my neighborhood in Jacksonville, FL functioned less as places of learning and more as warehouses to keep kids off the street. I know – I was one of those kids.
I don’t blame teachers, or parents. I’m not interested in blaming anybody. I’m only interested in making things better. And the only way to do that is to give parents and students a choice. If a student can’t get the education they need at their public school, there has to be an alternative.
Thankfully, there was for me.
My early years in my Jacksonville school were not a success, to put it mildly. I seldom understood the lesson. I was often confused and frustrated. I’d ask my teachers questions, but it seemed to me that this just annoyed them. So, I stopped asking questions and I withdrew into myself. I failed third grade – twice. Fourth and fifth weren’t much better. I lashed out by getting into fights with my classmates. D’s and F’s filled my report card. I was going nowhere. I was just another black kid in the warehouse.
But fortunately for me, my life changed the summer before sixth grade. I went to live with my godmother. She had one overriding thought: to get me into a better school. A good education, she knew, was the only way to get out of the hole I had dug myself into. She didn’t have any more money than my family did, but she had a plan. That was worth a lot. She knew about another school – a private school.
Using a tax-credit scholarship – you can call it a voucher – she enrolled me at Esprit de Corps Center for Learning. Esprit demands excellence from its students. It teaches them to be warriors for knowledge and for good values. The teachers at Esprit were invested in my success. They took the time to figure out why learning was so difficult for me, and they tailored their instruction to my learning style.
Sound elite? It is. Sound expensive? It’s not. In fact, Esprit actually spends less money per student than the public school I had attended.
Instead of dreading my classes, I began to look forward to them. Instead of fistfights, I began doing community service work. I even earned the National Police Athletic League’s Girl of the Year award in 2009. When it was time for me to apply for college, Esprit even helped me to research scholarships and apply for waivers so that I could take my college entrance tests for free.
On June 5, 2010, I graduated from Esprit de Corps with honors, becoming the first member of my immediate family to earn a high school diploma, and eventually the first to earn a college degree, and then a Master’s. Without school choice, none of this would have been possible.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/school-choice-saved-my-life
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NOT politicians. DEMOCRAT POLITICIANS! Get that straight!
You were never fustrated because that's not a word! You are etarded because you left an entire letter out of the word. I mean you are etarded.
I feel like people dont know that if we privatize schools those schools will try to make a profit and that can easily lead to companys paying schools for "work programs" that are legal in certain states and is just free child labor or pay schools to tell kids that climate change is a hoax and to buy certain goods. Instead of allowing for school choice which would ruin already underfunded public schools because schools are funded by property taxes and redlining ruined the ability for ethnic minorities to improve their neighborhoods and homes, we should instead fund schools and remove administrative and pension bloat. Also whats with all the hate of teachers unions? They're just asking for better pay they dont change the curriculum, if your really scared of a public sector union blame police unions who strike and cause a ruckus everytime a police officer gets called out for murder or assault.
When you say Politicians, make sure you say Democrats. Democrats Always hate school choice. Republicans support it. So why does the black community vote Democrat????? Good question huh.
#BrokeDemocrats
#SocialismSteals
Good on you, girl!!
Mondiale unico hai profilie mio global warming global coronavirus io troppo rabbia anche mio fori testa coando global tocca school college university come possibile io cilencio
The irony is that all the politicians that are against school choice are sending their kids to private schools. IOW: They only want YOU to not have a choice.
1:33 voice crack
The thing is…you could be just BETTER, PUBLIC SCHOOLS! Then everything would be solved! DO NOT HIDE UNDER THE IDEOLOGY Don't you know the simple lesson – better service that is acceptable, less people that are criticising?
I think it’s great she was able to have school choice to get her out of a bad situation. But what about the millions of children who can’t choose a “better option”. What happens when you have school choice is the wealthy and or opportunity given kids are able to make it out of a bad system and better their lives but it then leaves millions of students across the country with even more failing schools. I worked in a school with an open district what happened was students who have the opportunity to get their own ride (Because buses won’t drive select kids across the city to a different school) to the school were able to go to a good school while kids with single parents or poor parents who didn’t have vehicles and couldn’t pay for their 6 year old to get on the bus alone to ship them across the city was that those students went to a super under funded school. Each public school is given federal money based on student enrollment and student progress. If a bad school is in an open district what happens is the better off students leave thus leading to less money for the school. Then it leads to less funds for necessary things like laptops books resources and even good quality trained teachers. So those poor kids without opportunity are going to start adulthood behind everyone else and statistics show that if your born into poverty you will stay in poverty and thus leading to a cycle of poverty that puts more burden on the middle class who are working hard because corporate leaders won’t raise taxes on the wealth class.
Or you could just properly fund public schools.
https://youtu.be/l2g0jEdu8qk
Teachers' Union hear this loud and clear; Let Our Children Go! We want Free choice for our children.
Until states work to dismantle teachers unions, nothing will change. There is no way that they will allow school choice because it will be the beginning of the end for public schooling and the tax structure that supports it.
Gee I wonder what other policies that allow for “choice” save lives!!
Great Story.
me, a singaporean: wait u guys dont have school choice?
My take, and you'll never get this past the teacher's unions, is to privatize all public schools, hiring several companies to run the various schools in a city or county, and let them compete for which company can do a better job with the students at the best, reasonable price. The school board's job would then be merely to meet a few times a year to assess which companies are doing well and which are doing poorly, and make needed changes when necessary. But I know, I live in a fantasy world.
How come public schools in America are so bad? Here in the UK we don’t have problems with ‘school choice’ or public schools being bad.
No
Not to take away from the content of the video but that is not where Jacksonville is in Florida.
I have always wanted school choice since my school growing up sucked. Im in college now but it took the long and hard way and im still fighting through it
What a touching story, I am happy for you that your the first in your family to get a master and dig out of the poverty hell hole, and I 100% agree that the current school system is broken… so why not fix it. As I see it what your preaching is a bandaid on an open wound and is most certainly not the final product we should be striving for.
So is choosing what school you go to not a thing in america then? In my country the money follows the student, not the other way around
Here's a good idea. How about we tax the rich and corporations at a much higher rate and that way we can increase welfare for poor communities. That will help poor communities become richer, and then they can pay for better schools with their taxes. That makes sense, doesn't it? We could prop up our failures instead of leaving them to rot and die!
Many of us have mused that we would eventually be numbers instead of names. Even as of the date of this video almost 3 years ago, we have been numbers for a long time, and in more areas than education; monetary amounts.
What a difference a school can make !!
What a difference a school can make !!
She is an inspiration. Thank you for sharing your story.
Get a job, i'm not paying on your kid's education.
“. We find that North Carolina’s system of charter schools has increased theracial isolation of both black and white students, and has widened the achievementgap. “
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/pam.20226?casa_token=yJj0CYbSyGwAAAAA:mA5CDp8I8Xi35VyPFdzAf8T8M1v1LdUDzMopP0q7zNk0BfSYmzB2Bpr7zoJcDh-Z8aL6XBP1khqxkQ
Oh my goodness, that makes me cry. Good for her!
Besides Public School…
Prison is the only other Government Institution which doesn't allow a family to choose location & institution….
We get to choose which Post Office to drop our mail or rent a P.O. Box… we can choose which EDD or DMV office to do business… we choose which Metro Station, Bus or Train to take.. We choose which parks and beaches to visit…and which Libraries to checkout books…
Liberal Democrats will always fight against school choise.
Why is there no mention of the fact that public school funding is based on the property tax of the school district? Perhaps instead of trying to tell people it's only an issue because people aren't choosing to go to private schools, efforts should be made to ensure struggling schools are given adequate funding.
Education has been and always will be the great divider and equalizer of class in this country. It's not because minorities and rural whites aren't as smart as rich whites and Asian kids like the Left implies through their policies, it's because of everything mentioned in this video. Remove the barriers to success for all students and the cream will rise to the top no matter their skin color or zip code.
It would be absolutely ridiculous if school choice wasn't available in our free society. We do have the freedom of choice after all, so to deny us of these rights would be severely unconstitutional!
School choice, school choice, school choice!!!
High quality authorizing practices are critical to fostering high quality charter schools. If you are interested in learning how that is achieved, this series dives deep into the SUNY authorization process and the high standards and best practices that make New York’s charter schools so successful. https://apple.co/37t7sf4
Why do rich people send their children to private single-sex schools? Could it be that they know something we don't?
Brilliant love it!
Competition
Tuition always makes everything better. School choice even makes public schools better. Don’t let the unions brainwash you. Vote for school choice.
Why should I be taxed to pay for someone else's children? Parents should be taxed extra to pay for their children's education
Actually, this highlights one problem with the public school system: Not enough funding.
The voucher system takes money away from the public schools. This is wrong, because you’re going to a private school, getting a better education, at the expense of literally everyone else.
The problem with government being involved in public school they are paid for attendance not education. Private school demands respect from students, does not tolerate disruption. There is learning, no homework, dress codes, preparing for your career.
What is school choice exactly
Somehow I was told that school choice is socialism
Honestly I'm just worried it will incentivize schools to be made even easier, since all parents care about are grades. And as it is, I mostly slept through High School and still got As/Bs because it was so ridiculously easy.