By Marian Wright Edelman
I recently wrote about the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom Schools® program’s annual National Day of Social Action, which this year engaged thousands of students enrolled in CDF Freedom Schools summer programs across the country around the message “Public Education is a Public Good.” Scholars from the CDF Freedom Schools site at The Mark in Montclair, a program of Saint Mark’s United Methodist Church in Montclair, New Jersey, put it this way in a letter to the editor at the Montclair Local: “Public schools are more than just buildings. They are the places where we learn, grow, and build our futures. Public education helps ‘level the playing field.’ It brings together people from different backgrounds and teaches us how to respect others and work together. That makes our community stronger . . . We all agree: access to a high-quality education should be a right, not a privilege. Everyone deserves the chance to learn, no matter where they live or how much money they have. One of our peers said, ‘Without education, you’ll die on the streets, not being able to get a job.’ It may sound harsh—but that’s the reality too many kids face. To the adults making decisions: See us. Hear us. Invest in us. If public education is a public good, then we, the public, deserve the best of what it can be.”
In the same letter, they also shared a few ideas they think public schools can take from the CDF Freedom Schools movement, explaining that in their own summer program “we don’t just read books and play games—we build community, ask big questions, and learn how to stand up for what’s right.” They wrote: “At Freedom School, we do things differently. We start with Harambee, a joyful time where we sing, cheer, and get inspired. We read books with characters who look like us, talk like us, and face real-life challenges. We’re encouraged to ask questions, work in groups, and express our ideas through writing, art, and performance. Public schools could borrow from these practices—adding more joy, culture, and creativity to everyday learning.”
The CDF Freedom Schools model is indeed designed to light a spark and be an example of the best of what education can be. CDF Freedom Schools sites provide summer and after-school enrichment through a research-based and multicultural program model that supports students, or “scholars,” in grades K-12 and their families. They focus on high-quality academic and character-building enrichment, parent and family involvement, civic engagement and social action, intergenerational servant leadership development, and nutrition, health, and mental health, and they incorporate the totality of CDF’s mission by fostering environments that support young people to excel and believe in their ability to make a difference in themselves and in their families, schools, communities, country, and world with hope, education, and action.
Scholars enrolled at CDF Freedom Schools sites receive culturally relevant pedagogy and are immersed in reading excellent books to deepen their understanding of themselves and all they have in common with others in a multiracial, multicultural democratic society—the books the scholars above mentioned in their letter that feature characters who look and talk like them and who face some of the same real-life challenges. The program helps foster a love for reading that counters summer learning loss, and for many scholars, this full experience becomes a transformational foundation with impacts that last far beyond the summer—as CDF puts it, nurturing lifelong learners and advocates for progress.
More than 12,000 scholars enrolled in CDF Freedom Schools programs this summer have learned, and learned to share with confidence, a lesson every child and young person should know: they all deserve the best of what education can be. Adults must step up who share their conviction and their determination not to settle for less.