Parents didn’t feel welcome at their kids’ schools. In a way, her school choice fight has its roots not only in Washington but in the racially troubled Little Rock, Arkansas, where Virginia and her beloved identical twin sister, Harrietta, grew up.In the mid-sixties, the process of integration was far from complete and Virginia and Harrietta were part of a second wave of black kids going to predominantly white schools. Even promising students struggle to get a basic education. He was in the military stationed in Arkansas, when he decided to attend Philander Smith where he met my mom.” Philander Smith College is a historically black college in Little Rock.Dropping her off the first day, her father gave her a pep talk: “My dad said ‘You have a responsibility to go to Central, and to do well because you have younger siblings. And, if you don’t do well, you won’t help change the way they look at us.’ I was 14 and I felt I had to do it for my siblings.
She is author of the self-published memoir, Voices, Choices, and Second Chances, which is aimed at providing inspiration and direction for other parents who want to make a difference in their children’s educational choices. “I was bitter for a while,” she admits. Teacher unions waged a well-funded campaign against it. President George W. Bush signed it into law.Without Walden Ford, there just might not be the D.C. “By the time he was 11, things had gotten really bad,” Walden Ford recalls. He starts embracing school, but even with working nights as a janitor, Virginia can’t pay the tuition. “Right up the street from us was a very crime-ridden area.
In a meeting at the school (which she enters only after checking in with an officer and passing through a metal detector), the principal tells Virginia that the school simply can’t worry very much about students who don’t want to be there. Follow me on Twitter @andrewwimer. “Their relationship with the government was one of dependency.
Virginia Walden Ford hopes policymakers will be inspired by the forthcoming movie "Miss Virginia," which portrays her fight in D.C. for greater educational opportunity for all children. I got called the N-word every day.
Lewis stopped and asked her if she was all right. Teachers were not very nice to us.
Again, affluent and upper middle-class DC residents already had access to quality private and public schools, it was economically struggling families who needed help.At the time Virginia was fighting to establish the program, DC schools were spending an average of around $14,000 per pupil per year, among the highest in the nation. Virginia founded D.C. Parents for School Choice that year.
and the child of two public school educators, she and her twin sister, Harrietta, were among the first 130 students to desegregate high schools in Little Rock during the 1960s.
The help was in the form of a scholarship to a private school.The Fowlers had heard of the Stillman Institute in Alabama. “William was one of those kids God gives you so you’ll find out if you really have what it takes to be a parent,” Walden Ford tells IWF. She graduated from Philander Smith at the age of sixteen and became a public-school teacher. “I don’t know how I did it.
Virginia speaks on issues including education reform, school choice, parent empowerment, and civil rights. In the film, Virginia’s son struggles to stay in his public high school and stay out of trouble. When constitutionality of the voucher program for low-income children in Cleveland, Ohio was challenged, Virginia rallied 500 parents to offer support for vouchers by standing on the steps of the Supreme Court. (Courtesy of Virginia Walden Ford) Fighting for Her Community It might have been simple to just breathe easy now that her son was in a safe and stable learning environment, but Walden Ford … The schools were unresponsive to their needs. “It was hard,” Virginia says. “I was crying, I was terrified,” Virginia says. “I’m really worried about William.” Lewis knew William, and his potential. “I’d like to help him,” Lewis said.
Six years ago Joe Kelley applied for D.C. vouchers for all four of his school-age children-and they all received them.He contrasts the quiet atmosphere of the private school his children attend with the crime and fights of public schools. Walden Ford would have to pay half. Her solution: a second job. “There are parent activists today, but I think that we were warriors. We need more parents who are school choice warriors today.” Let’s hope that as more people learn of Virginia Walden Ford’s story and the effect she has had, they are inspired to follow in her steps and add to her already considerable legacy.