Burgess Owens: “We share the same sentiments, but I think you are aware of what is taking place in the African American community, that…”

“We share the same sentiments, but I think you are aware of what is taking place in the African American community, that there are large numbers of parents who have given up on the system and they want, they say they want vouchers. The polls show this. What is happening is our Republican colleagues, by the way, they know that in their districts their constituents do not want vouchers. Their constituents want continued improvement in public schools and they think they have good public schools so their own constituencies are not interested in vouchers. They are going to go out and advocate for the African American parents that they should have vouchers and they are using them as guinea pigs, they are whipping up all of these false promises about what vouchers may produce. And as I pointed out before, when you come to the point where you have the places in the private schools that are all too few and nevertheless they keep pushing the idea that vouchers are the answers to school improvement in America. It is a dogma. They seem blind to the reality and to reason. They go right ahead. But they are parading, there are parading African American parents out to support that argument. Our first duty is to get to the African American parents and leaders, and it is hard to tell them not to give up on the public school system because they have gone through so much and, as I said before, New York, things are getting worse in the public school system. But we have no choice.…”