Winsome Sears on Virginia’s ‘Functionally Illiterate’ Black Children: Parents ‘Want Choice’

EXCERPT:

SEARS: “In fact, I’ve talked to some educators, black educators, they tell me, Winsome, it actually starts in the fourth grade. Something’s got to give. Parents are asking to be given the vouchers so that they can decide where to send their children. We need charter schools. I’m knocking on doors, public housing, the moms and dads, they’re not telling me they want more money for their child to go to that same school. They want choice. They want choice. And so, let’s give it to them. Now, having said that, we do need to pay our teachers more. There’s not more money in the budget to do it. Fully half of the general fund goes towards education. That money is stuck up in the higher echelons. Got to get that money from here down into the classrooms where it belongs, pay those teachers more. It shouldn’t be that teachers are using their own money to buy resources. It’s unacceptable."