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School choice is necessary for all children to reach their full potential. But it isn’t sufficient.
During my time on the Massachusetts Board of Education, we closed several of the state’s lowest-performing schools. Many were in Boston’s poorest neighborhoods, where they anchored community life.
Before one of those votes, a Haitian woman approached me and explained what the school meant to her family. It was one of the few places where her daughter could speak their particular form of Creole. “Why are you closing our school?” she asked. “It’s a good school.”
I explained that the state data showed otherwise: Only a small fraction of the school’s students could read or do math at grade level.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal (Paywall)
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Roland G. Fryer, Jr., is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is Professor of Economics at Harvard University, an entrepreneur, and co-founder of Equal Opportunity Ventures.