Publisher's Weekly Review
Civil rights activist Suitts (Hugo Black of Alabama) traces the rhetoric behind the modern school choice movement to its racist roots in this slim but persuasive investigation. Though contemporary reformers tout school choice as a "social justice issue," Suitts reveals that tax credits and private school vouchers were advanced by Alabama state senator Albert Boutwell and other segregationists to blunt the impact of the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. When Southern politicians and school board members discovered that opposing integration at all costs was "counterproductive to preserving as many virtually segregated schools as possible," they began to emphasize "parental liberty" and "freedom of choice," Suitts writes, and strove to bolster private education at the expense of public schools. He suggests that the Trump administration's support for charter schools and voucher programs, led by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, will impoverish public schools, perpetuate "token level of diversity," and handicap students of color, as well as those with lower socioeconomic status. Writing without rancor but with an urgent sense of the risks involved, Suitts presents a damning portrait of the historic motivations behind privatization. Teachers, policy makers, and progressive activists would do well to take heed. (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
A civil rights activist and attorney convincingly demonstrates that Brown v. Board of Education barely put a dent in unequal public schooling. As Suitts (Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution, 2005), the founding director of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union, notes, the Deep South was the epicenter of resistance to school desegregation in the 1950s and '60s. Politicians such as Orval Faubus, Jesse Helms, and George Wallace may have stood in schoolhouse doors and filed flurries of lawsuits, but, in the end, more sophisticated adherents to the segregationist cause found a subtle workaround: They would create a parallel system of private schools that could maintain racial separation while also benefiting from public dollars in the form of tax credits, vouchers, and even direct payments. There were countless faux declarations of "freedom of choice," so long as black parents did not choose to send their children to white schools, while at the same time eliminating "any suggestion from the state constitution that there is a right of education or an obligation of the state to fund public schoolchildren." Those schemes have since spread nationwide and are now ardently promoted by the likes of Betsy DeVos, the sitting secretary of education, part of whose considerable fortune comes from investments in private schools. "Freedom of choice" was subsequently enshrined by the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, whose utterances are held sacred by the right. As Suitts shows, although the cast of segregationist leaders of the past has been narrowed to "a small rogues' gallery," their legacy is widespread and their followers are legion while "contemporary private school patterns and practicesappear for what they are: legacies of class-based southern segregation used to evade Brown and multi-dimensional segregation of non-southern states before Brown." Indeed, writes the author, more than half of American states now use vouchers to support private schools with public funds, making it likely that inequality will continue for a long time to come.A powerful argument against the "virtual segregation" of schoolchildren enabled by vouchers, credits, and other instruments. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The school choice movement is often presented by its proponents as advocating for the educational rights of lower-income Black children, yet as Suitts demonstrates, the movement has from its inception worked hand-in-glove with segregationists. Immediately after Brown v. Board of Education ruled racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, white parents began moving their children into private all-white "segregation academies," while legislating public funds in the form of vouchers or "scholarships" to pay for them. Successful segregationists avoided overtly racist language, instead framing their goals in the all-American vernacular of "freedom" and "consumer choice." Suitts traces the development of school choice from the early 1960s through the Reagan era, when it became entwined with the public funding of religious schools, many of which openly discriminate against LGBTQ and immigrant students. He points out that by enrolling a token number of nonwhites, (typically Asians) and by taking (unenforced) pledges of nondiscrimination, private schools have been able to maintain de facto discrimination. Although he doesn't cover every facet of this grim history, Suitts does deliver a masterful, highly readable account of an American tragedy.
Library Journal Review
"School choice"--the idea that the federal government should make it possible for students to attend alternatives to K-12 public schools--is often hailed as a way to make education more equitable, but Suitts (Hugo Black of Alabama) argues that the phenomenon is rooted in a history of white supremacy. In the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education (1954)--in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public school segregation was illegal--white parents sought a segregated alternative for their children and private school enrollment exploded across the South. In response, Southern states began to experiment with strategies to redirect public funds toward private schools in the name of "freedom of choice." Suitts illustrates how school choice has been used to systematically drain funding and support away from public schools, delivering on segregationists' promise of preserving white supremacy by educating their children at white-majority and white-controlled institutions. VERDICT This brief treatment will likely seem cursory to scholars of race, racism, and education in U.S. history, but those unfamiliar with the topic will emerge with a new understanding of how indelibly racism has shaped our collective attitudes and policies regarding the public provision of education for all.--Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc., Boston
