Oprah Winfrey is being properly hailed for opening a private school in South Africa for disadvantaged black girls. The $40 million, 50-acre Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, will provide hand-picked (by Oprah) girl students with textbooks, uniforms, housing and meals, as well as an opportunity to escape the circumstances of their birth. Oprah has also promised these girls that she will pay for their higher education anywhere they travel in the world. Nelson Mandela himself showed up to thank Oprah.
Oprah’s school embodies the very definition of a Private Charter School. Private Charter Schools are usually set up by private funding for altruistic reasons having to do with providing quality educational choices for disadvantaged children. That is certainly the case with Oprah. The country of South Africa was only too pleased to “charter” Oprah’s school, as it represents all that is right about reaching out to help people. It is a marvelous legacy.
But here is the irony. If Oprah had attempted to open her Private Charter School in any state in America she almost certainly would have failed. Private Charter Schools are vehemently opposed by the major teachers unions, the Democratic Party, and a host of other liberal organizations that have vested interests in the way public schools are funded. Tenured teachers do not want accountability and they do not want educational competition. Politicians want teachers’ political contributions and they want to control state school taxes. It is a combination lethal to the interests of poor children.
Parents of disadvantaged children in American urban areas are thus denied meaningful choices in educating their children by these teachers union “no teacher left behind” policies.
Oprah had to go to South Africa to do something that she could not have done in America, help young girls receive a better education and live a better life.
