Urban School Choice Day set for March 17

A new advocacy day, focused on the needs of urban families for quality educational options, is being planned to bring more diverse voices to the state capitol.

Urban School Choice Day, set for Thursday, March 17, will help urban parents and families get to Jefferson City to rally in the Capitol Rotunda and talk to their state legislators about the need for more school choices in biggest metro areas. Parents and families will be provided with free transportation and lunch to participate.

USCD was created for multiple reasons but the main one being that there is a huge lack of urban representation in the school choice movement. The minority community does not have a seat at the school choice table and it is hurting our chances of impacting change in the legislature. Most black and brown people reside in urban areas where the representatives are the loudest opponents of school choice legislation. Their biggest argument is that their constituents don’t want school choice because the urban community doesn’t advocate for it.

What is Urban School Choice Day?

Urban School Choice Day is the day where urban parents, guardians, teachers, and students in Missouri gather at the state capitol to advocate for school choice opportunities in our inner cities where students are all too often left behind due to the lack of quality education options.

How Urban School Day will help

• It will give hope to parents that are dissatisfied with their current education options.
• It will allow urban parents the chance to be included in the school choice conversation.
• It will leverage the social media power of these parents and kids.
• It will create more advocates and have a ripple effect in the urban community.
• It will allow us the chance to brand what school choice is to the urban community before our opponents thus allowing us to control the narrative and conversation.

What happens at USCD?

Urban School Choice Day will provide busses to help inner-city parents, students, and educators from Kansas City and St. Louis get to the state capitol to learn more about school choice, educational options in their area, and advocate for more educational opportunities for our urban kids. The day begins with a rally in the Capitol Rotunda with speakers focused on what school choice is, what legislation pertaining to school choice is moving in the Missouri legislature, and express how school choice has benefited them. Then attendees will tour the capitol and visit with their own local senators and representatives to talk about how access to better education options can help improve Missouri’s urban cores.