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The op-ed below written by Johnny C. Taylor Jr. appeared in the Times Record News on September 29th, 2017. Taylor is the president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the largest organization exclusively representing the black college community. He is one of CER’s “Voices of Opportunity.” Follow him on Twitter at @JohnnyCTaylorJr.

The greatest country on earth is awash in fragile communities in which less than 20 percent of adults are literate, fourth graders lack proficiency in basic reading and math, jobs are scarce, and incarceration is as common as college.

These fragile communities are black, white, brown and yellow. They exist in places as different as Appalachia and Fort Lauderdale.

I know. I grew up in one. And had it not been for my mother’s choice to take me out of a traditional public school and take advantage of the educational opportunity offered at a pilot magnet school, I would never have become a successful lawyer, corporate executive and now the head of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which represents 47 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) — schools established when black students had no option other than segregated institutions. These schools have a long history of educating some of the nation’s most influential and successful African-American doctors, educators, lawyers, business leaders and entrepreneurs.

It is through the lens of HBCUs that we have come to see that the plight of students trapped in poor schools, often in fragile communities, is not only an economic challenge for this nation, but an issue of national security.

We have a unique understanding at our colleges. We know what it takes to help students who are most economically disadvantaged and educationally vulnerable. And we know that when students are well prepared in primary and secondary grades, they are more likely to learn and to graduate from higher education than if they were disserved.

We also have a vested interest in ensuring that the children who arrive as freshmen on our campuses are extraordinarily well-prepared. Although some of our campuses have experienced enrollment growth recently, the challenge we increasingly face is how to graduate young people who arrive as college freshmen woefully under-prepared academically. Currently, about 35 percent of HBCU students graduate within 6 years of starting their education. As federal and state governments refuse to fund remedial education for university students and demand higher graduation rates from post-secondary institutions, the only way HBCUs can survive is if the students who show up are college ready when they leave the PK-12 system.

Better parental choices are, frankly, a matter of life or death for many of our country’s HBCUs. And the only way to impact that is to ensure that high quality secondary school choices abound and that parents are aware of the options that exist to help them take their families out of traditional district schools that have long failed their precious youth.

HBCUs have stepped up to the plate to provide this leadership. Howard University, for example, started a charter school called Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science, which is preparing the next generation of leaders for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This area of focus is of particular importance because African-Americans receive just 7.6 percent of all STEM bachelor’s degrees and 4.5 percent of doctorates in STEM.

Another example of HBCUs taking matters into their own hands can be found in Tallahassee’s Florida A&M University, which opened the Developmental Research School in 1877. The Research School gives a nationally competitive college preparatory education to each of its students and serves as a state-of-the-art laboratory for education innovation. Throughout its 140 years of existence, the school has graduated thousands of students who have gone on to become leaders in their chosen professions.

These are some of the things we are doing to address fragile communities. If we don’t do it, who will?

It’s become clear the organization that once supported the greatest needs of our disadvantaged is no longer interested in that work. The NAACP recently came out and again called for a moratorium on charter schools, absurdly claiming that the promise of charters never materialized.

This was preceded by American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten’s attacks on school choice, referring to charters as the “polite cousins of segregation.”

We cannot afford this kind of issue-myopia in our society. The stakes are simply too high as fragile communities continue a downward spiral. The only solution is to improve educational outcomes and that begins with increasing school choices for parents. We have seen the dangerous domino effect if kids in these communities are forced to stay in failing schools.

And while the NAACP and Weingarten seem to be perfectly comfortable with that scenario, we are not.

We will continue to fight for these fragile communities. And if the NAACP continues to reject the educational opportunities school choice provides them, they risk becoming irrelevant — or worse — an enemy of the very people they claim to fight for.

The article below, written by T. Willard Fair, appeared in USA Today on September 21st, 2017. 

The NAACP refuses to acknowledge the benefits that come from school choice and expects all people of color should follow their lead. I won’t.

Once upon a time it may have been unheard of for the head of an urban league dedicated to the improvement of lives for African-American children to partner with a Republican to work on school reform. As part of one of his education reform efforts, Florida governor Jeb Bush convinced me to help him go around that state in an attempt to get school choice legislation passed. I leapt at the opportunity because I was desperately concerned about the lack of quality educational options for children in Liberty City, a neighborhood of the city of Miami where a branch of the urban league is headquartered.

But that one achievement 30 plus years ago created a path that has changed lives for the children not only for Liberty City but children across the state. That is why I am compelled to speak up with deep concern and opposition to the statements of late by the NAACP, whose leadership has begun to ignore the reality of communities like mine, and indeed the conditions of African American students all over the country.

Here’s what I need to say to them, to the people of this nation, to people of color — I am involved in the school choice movement because the future of my life and your life depends upon it. Starting the state’s first charter school was one of the most significant accomplishments of my life. Because of our willingness to look beyond traditional divisions and leave beyond our tendency to only work with those with whom we are comfortable, our children of color are closing the achievement gap. African-American students in charter schools are scoring 4% higher on reading tests than those in traditional public schools and Florida charter school students are more likely to attend college.

Hispanic students do 12% better than their peers at traditional public schools. These are but two of the many indicators that point to increased success for students of color because their families were empowered to find schools that better met the needs of their children.

Far too many people and organizations, like the NAACP, refuse to acknowledge this. Their recent recommendations to curb charter schools, reduce their numbers and their independence, are wrong, and they expect falsely that all people of color should follow their lead because the color of your skin should dictate who you believe. I have worked a lifetime to change this misperception, to help people see that good policies for our kids do not have a color.

Too many of our African-American leaders simply defer their beliefs to organizations like the NAACP which once represented our people well. What they must do however is recognize times have changed and we have to have the honest discussions about what we were going to do about our children who continue to be failed by traditional institutions and bureaucracy.

Most important, even when trusted leaders talk about our children, the restoration process can be articulated only by those to whom the children belong, the parents.  We can fight. We can mobilize. We can train. We can energize community members. But at the end of the day we have to have informed and trained and energized parents enough and in the right way to lead the charge for what is right for their children.

Time is running out. Choice now!! “Choice now” has to be one of the new refrains to “we shall overcome.”

We can’t wait 20 more years. Time is most certainly running out. The circumstances that we deal with every day in Miami — and I dare say in every major urban area in the United States — are getting worse, not better. Time is running out for our communities, and we cannot wait another moment, let alone another decade to live without the kind of good choice among good schools that will eventually make a world of difference.

We need to give parents real power over the education available to their children, power that will take many different forms. Choice is at the top of the list.

T. Willard Fair is president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Greater Miami, Inc. A powerful voice in the effort to improve his community, he has worked for the Urban League since September, 1963.