Education Equality Now: Bernard Center Releases Hard-Hitting Ad Campaign Calling on Americans to be Foot Soldiers for School Choice
Contact:
Christina Jamison-Mozaffari
Email: cjamison@bernardcenter.org
Phone: (301) 807-5868
Education Equality Now: Bernard Center Releases Hard-Hitting Ad Campaign Calling on Americans to be Foot Soldiers for School Choice
Potomac, MD (February 8, 2012) – Black History Month should be a catalyst for dramatically improving America’s education system and embracing school choice, according to a hard-hitting advertising campaign launched today by the Bernard Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy, a national nonprofit organization.
Evoking the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, the full-page newspaper ad will run in African-American newspapers in major cities and in student newspapers at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The campaign touts the importance of educational options for all children and calls on parents and students to become foot soldiers in 21st century battle for school choice.
“School choice is the civil rights issue of our time,” said Michelle Bernard, President and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy. “All children, regardless of zip code, deserve access to an equal and excellent education. If we don’t give parents the legal right to take their children out of failing schools and put them into schools that work for them, we will create a permanent underclass in this country.
“As we celebrate Black History Month, we have a moral obligation to make our future brighter than the darkest days of our past,” she continued. “This modern-day educational segregation can be overcome if parents, students and teachers come together to demand educational equality for all our children.”
The ad will run in African American-interest papers in Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. in addition to HBCU newspapers across the country. Influential education groups have signed on to the ad including the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options (HCREO) and the American Board.
The Bernard Center has produced this short video to go along with the ad. This kicks off the center’s “Education Equality Now” campaign that calls on all Americans to be foot soldiers in the fight for educational equality regardless of zip code. The Bernard Center will also host a rally in Cleveland, Ohio on Sunday, February 26th featuring school choice advocate Kelly Williams-Bolar.
To request an interview with Michelle Bernard, please contact Christina Jamison-Mozaffari atcjamison@bernardcenter.org or (301) 807-5868.
The Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy is a research and educational institution – a think tank – whose mission is to fundamentally change the terms of the nation’s most critical domestic and foreign policy debates and challenge the American public, policymakers and the media to discuss those issues. For more information, please visit www.bernardcenter.org.
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