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Is School Choice the Black Choice? – With Roland Martin & Special Guests
February 22 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm EST
The 74 and prominent African-American journalist Roland Martin are heading to Atlanta next month
for the second stop on a 10-city tour they’ve launched to engage black families on issues of educational equity, student achievement, and parent involvement.
In honor of Black History Month, the Feb. 22 town hall event will be held at Morehouse College, one of the nation’s leading Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Founded in Atlanta in 1867, Morehouse is recognized for producing some of the nation’s top black male leaders, including one of the event panelists, Sekou Biddle, vice president of advocacy for the United Negro College Fund.
Local Atlanta partners for the town hall include Georgia Charter Schools Association, GeorgiaCAN, ]Better Outcomes for Our Kids (BOOK), EdConnect, and UNCF Atlanta.
National partners include the American Federation for Children, EdChoice, ExcelinEd, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Progressive Policy Institute, UNCF, and the Walton Family Foundation.
The town hall meetings, titled “Is School Choice the Black Choice?,” are taking place across the country through 2020. The series kicked off in Indianapolis in December with a gathering of some 300 people. Martin headlined a conversation with local and national education leaders there, asking tough questions about the city’s disparate achievement results, particularly among students of color, and examining the wide range of school choice options available to parents — from traditional public to innovation and charter schools.
The Atlanta event will also feature speakers involved in education and equity at the local, state, and national levels. Parents will have the opportunity to network with local education reform, faith, and civic groups and stay engaged in education advocacy efforts. The event is free.
Launched in 2015, The 74 is a nonprofit digital news site covering education in America. The site’s reporting puts an emphasis on educational approaches and innovative models that are effective at closing achievement gaps between low-income students of color and their white, more well-off peers.
The town hall begins at 6 p.m. at Morehouse College’s Ray Charles Performing Arts Center, 900 West End Avenue SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30310. There will also be a partner fair 30 minutes before and after the town hall. To register for the free event, please visit this link.
