Groups rally in Montgomery during School Choice Week

Hundreds of students and parents gathered in Montgomery Wednesday to march and bring awareness for school choice.

The march, which was made up of various education groups, began at the Doubletree Hotel and ended at the Capitol, where many children held signs and chanted as part of School Choice Week, a nationwide event to promote educational options for students.

Mark Overall, a member of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, said the rally was not about promoting any political trend, but to give children the opportunity to go to other schools that are not meeting their needs.

"The quality of education should not be determined on what is in the bank accounts of parents," Overall said.

Many people in the rally promoted alternative education systems, such as charter schools, private schools and other public schools in other districts. Ibrahim Lee, principal of Bellingrath Middle School in Montgomery, said he believed in great schools and the right to choose them.

"I believe that we are too powerful a people, too bright a people and too blessed a generation to provide our students anything less than the best," Lee said.

However, members of the Alabama Education Association held their own demonstration against School Choice Week, displaying signs that countered the marchers' sentiments.

Greg Graves, associate executive secretary of AEA, said the group was in favor of education options, but that charter schools and the Alabama Accountability Act would bankrupt school systems.

"That is our purpose of gathering today, to show that the education trust fund is already strained, but to further take dollars from that to possibly create an entirely separate school system that has not been proven to be any better than we already have, that defeats the purpose of proposing legislation designed to solve the problem," Graves said.

During the rally, House Speaker Mike Hubbard said the Alabama Accountability Act was the first step in granting options to parents and that a proposed charter school bill up for discussion in the upcoming legislative session would be the next step. Hubbard said the bill would be carried over by Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur.

"Those naysayers who are afraid of the status quo are going to see that we are not going to back down," Hubbard said. "It is going to happen and my goal in discussions with the leadership in public schools, they will see this is not a threat to public schools, this is a way that will help public schools because at the end of the day, our goal is to educate kids."

Howard Fuller, chair and co-founder of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, said he would like to see a charter school bill passed, as well as more resources to be allocated for schools for students to take advantafe of scholarship programs.

"What we have here today is a new generation of children that are trying to lead in Alabama and trying to make the point that low-income parents in Alabama need more options so that they can get the best education for their children," Fuller said.

According to a 2013 report from Stanford University's CREDO study, which tracks charter school performance, there were approximately 6,000 charter schools across the country serving about 2.3 million students, over half of which came from poor economic backgrounds.

Of note, the report found that roughly 25 percent of charter schools showed higher reading results than public schools, while only 29 percent showed better results in math.

The study concluded that charter schools are "especially helpful for some students," but noted there were "worrying numbers of charter schools whose learning gains are either substantially worse than the local alternative or are insufficient to give their students the academic preparation they need to continue their education or be successful in the workforce."

Graves said the students who were marching should have stayed in school.

"These children should be in school learning and not be used to promote political propaganda," Graves said.

Groups present during the rally were included the the American Federation for Children, StudentsFirst Alabama, the Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund, the Alabama Business Education Alliance, the Business Council of Alabama and the Alabama Coalition for Public Charter Schools.