I, like most people, love music. I tend to have eclectic tastes in music, too, as my playlist contains things ranging from Sabaton to Adele to Eminem. While it also has a song from Jay Z, it was a collaboration with Linkin Park. The truth is that I’m just not drawn to either Jay Z’s music or that of his wife, Beyonce.
Since I’m also not someone who follows celebrity culture, I don’t really keep up with what the duo is doing.
But that was before Jay Z went and did something that wasn’t just political, but right.
It seems he’s a supporter of school choice.
From Jeff Charles over at RedState:
Rapper Jay Z has launched an initiative to promote school choice, and progressives are mad about it. In other news, water is wet.
In fact, the move has ignited no small level of controversy among folks on the hard left, who despise the idea that parents – especially black parents – should choose where and how their children are educated.
The program is aimed at providing Philadelphia’s low-income students with access to the city’s best private schools.
Roc Nation, the talent agency Jay-Z founded, will host events to educate residents about proposed legislation in the Pennsylvania Senate that would distribute from public funds up to $300 million in scholarships to low-income students. The legislation is similar to school-choice voucher programs across the country that give students the opportunity to pursue education at private schools rather than low-performing public schools.
"We want to empower the youth and families with the knowledge to pursue their scholastic dreams, make their voices heard, and become the leaders of tomorrow," Roc Nation's managing director of philanthropy Dania Diaz said of the initiative. Left-wing opponents of school-choice policies, however, described Jay-Z's education initiative as a betrayal and a sinister collaboration with right-wing forces.
Nikole Hanah-Jones, author of "The 1619 Project," wrote a thread on X in which she harangued the program, claiming that “voucher programs have not been shown to improve results for poor Black children because most cannot get into high-quality private schools.
That might be true, but that sounds like a different issue. The truth is that public schools aren’t serving these kids—especially if they lag so far behind they can’t get into these schools, most of which are open to all ethnicities but require students to pass an entrance exam—which means it’s time to find someone who will.
Plus, depending on how the program is structured, it may well help some families look at other forms of alternative education such as homeschooling—some school choice plans will help with homeschool supplies, after all—or it may prompt some families to band together and create new private schools designed to meet the needs of these children.
Of course, a city councilman from Philly sought to argue that Roc Nation isn’t paying for the scholarships, the taxpayers will.
Charles, however, points something important out:
Philadelphia City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas argued that the scholarships provided by the program “aren’t going to be paid for by Roc Nation, they would be paid for by taxpayers.” Apparently, the fact that taxpayers are already paying for substandard government-run education didn’t seem to register for the politician.
It’s hilarious to me that people really think “that’s taxpayer money” is a dunk on something like this. Yes, it is, but taxpayer money is already paying for education, and guess what? It’s being wasted. It might as well go toward efforts that might actually benefit someone.
American public schools, as a whole, are terrible. I’ve noted previously just how little has been accomplished in the name of education, all on the taxpayer dime, and yet using a portion of that for alternatives is somehow a great sin.
I’m glad to see Jay Z involved in something like this and I sincerely hope that it has a positive impact on school choice there. The kids need it no matter what the usual suspects might want you to think.
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What really seems to be working in PA for minorities, especially in Philadelphia, is charter schools. Naturally the Democrats in our state legislature hate them, since the teachers unions hate them.