Against the Grain

School Choice’s Roots in Segregation Battles

Few things sound as American as choice. And in the United States, the freedom to send one’s child outside of the traditional public school system is a choice that has been promoted aggressively since the legal end to segregation in schools. Scholar Jon Hale traces how the notion of school choice was used to fight against school desegregation, by the likes of free market champion Milton Friedman and others.

Resources:

Jon Hale, The Choice We Face: How Segregation, Race, and Power Have Shaped America’s Most Controversial Education Reform Movement Beacon, 2021

Photo credit: Eli Pousson