Denisha Allen: Firsthand experience with the life-changing power of a great school

Host Grant Callen welcomes Denisha Allen in this episode, unraveling her remarkable journey from childhood struggles in Jacksonville, Florida to her current role as a national advocate for school choice. The conversation highlights the transformative impact of school choice on Denisha's life and emphasizes the need for more kids to be matched with a school that meets their needs.

Join us as Denisha shares how her advocacy garnered her an email from the White House and an invitation to be a guest of honor at President Trump’s 2017 State of the Union address.

Show Notes:

Transcript 

Grant Callen: Welcome to the Empower podcast, the show where we talk about Mississippi's big challenges and big opportunities. Each episode, we'll talk with lawmakers, policy experts, and community leaders about how we can break down barriers together to create a Mississippi where everyone can rise.

Welcome back. This is your host, Grant Callen. I'm so excited about today's conversation with my friend, Denisha Allen. She is senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, and she's the founder of Black Minds Matter. In Mississippi, there is growing enthusiasm for school choice. And a lot of times we talk with people about school choice for other kids, and that's really important. But one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Denisha is because you personally benefited from school choice in the state of Florida. And it changed your life. And interestingly enough, it also generated an invitation to sit in the gallery at the state of the union, and have President Trump mention your story.

So I'm really excited to talk to you and hear about your story. Let me give our listeners some background. So first of all, Denisha grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of West Florida. She has a master's from the University of South Florida. Before coming to AFC, Denisha served in the U. S. Department of Education. And you have become a national symbol for school choice. Denisha, welcome to the show. 

Denisha Allen: Thank you, Grant, so much for having me on. It's very nice to talk with you and to share my story on your platform I'm honored. 

Grant Callen: Let's jump right in. What was it like growing up in Florida?

Denisha Allen: I love Florida. I just moved back to Florida. I moved to Georgia for felt like not long moved all myself and then just moved back to Florida, love the sunshine state. I grew up in Jacksonville, which is North Florida and it wasn't so great of an experience growing up during that time, I experienced a lot of traumas. I experienced trauma, living at home with my biological mother and also in the classroom. Growing up, we moved around constantly. I went to about five to six different elementary schools and each of them were not the right fit for me, I failed the third grade twice because I couldn't read. And I hated school growing up. I remember my first vivid memory of school was in the second grade and I was raising my hand asking my teacher to let me go to the restroom, please I just need to go to the restroom. And she said no. Put your hand down. You don't listen to me, why should you go to the restroom? And I got up and I walked out of class. When I got back, she demanded that I leave and go to the principal's office, and I was like, no, I am not going, I'm not going anywhere. She picked me up, out of my seat and I started kicking and screaming, yelling. No, I don't want to go, I don't want to go. And she picks me up and she's dragging me, I'm putting up a fight, she's dragging me out of class to go to the principal's office, I'm crying hysterically, trying to cling onto the walls, cling onto the desk, to not go to the principal's office, she then picks me up by my feet and just drags me the entire way to the principal's office and this is like my earliest memory of school.

Third grade, I couldn't pass the reading assessment and was left behind. Didn't take summer classes because my mom did not sign the form. I repeated third grade again, same situation. In the fourth grade, I got accepted into this program where it was supposed to help me get caught up to my right grade and the sad thing is that in this program, it was filled with kids who were like me, two, three, four grade levels behind in elementary school. Like this is not like middle high school, these are kids like eight, nine, seven year old kids who are already three four grade levels behind. In the fourth grade I was in this program and I didn't even pass that and so I thought I was dumb I thought I was the stupidest kid ever. I have very low self esteem, I was getting into fights all the time I just I hated school I really thought it was the place that I just had to go to so my mom won't go to jail because that had actually happened before, and It was just routine, to go to this place, had no hope. I come from a family of high school dropouts, so my mom dropped out of school, she got pregnant with me when she was 16 years old. Have uncles who dropped out of school, had a whole lot of family who dropped out of school and so even when I would enter into school, many of the teachers would be like, Oh, another Meriwether, like here's another one. So it was just not a place where I felt welcomed or like I wanted to achieve anything. 

Grant Callen: Wow. That's heavy. So tell us more fast forward.

Denisha Allen: Fast forward the summer before my sixth grade year, during this time I moved in with my godmother. So I began to live with her full time. And one of the first things she wanted to do was to put me in a good school. And she's you're going to my church's school, we're going to get you together. You're not going to act up at the church. She was right, cause I was just like, Oh Lord, church you have to put on a different face and so they didn't know I acted up and all this stuff. So she put me into the church's private school. She didn't have a way to pay for it like her income was not that much significantly better than my biological families and insert school choice. A friend told her about the step up for student scholarship in Florida. At the time it was a tax credit scholarship and so I'm date and myself, I feel old now that all of this, all the programs are expanding and changing. Right now it's an education savings account, but back way back then it was a tax credit scholarship, and I benefited from that it was a scholarship for low income students to get a private school tuition paid. So she applied, I got accepted onto the program and it changed my life. In the sixth grade, when I entered into the school, of course it was like night and day, but during that summer, I had to take a test a levels test, like active, see what this kid is academically. I scored low in every subject area, and one of the things that the teachers did, two teachers, before I even started, during the summer, they met with me one on one to try to help, and so I had reading they were my tutors, basically. During the summer, I was doing reading tutoring and I was doing math tutoring. They were trying to help me learn my times tables, because I didn't know them, and this is sixth grade, I didn't know all my times tables and I was not reading on level. And so that first thing, that was different for me. Before teachers did not take that much attention to try to help me to learn that actual one on one attention to get my skills up. A teacher, I remember in the traditional schools, kids raise their hand oh, I want to read I want to read. It would be my turn to read, and the teacher I'm stumbling over words and this one teacher, she just Oh my gosh, just stop and go to another kid who could read the passage without stumbling over every word, at this new school every single day, the teachers greeted us with a smile, hugging us, praying with us, if I came through the door, looking despondent, big old hug and let me pray for you. My first teacher in the sixth grade, that same scenario, all the kids are reading. She would call on me to read and I would start crying, hyperventilating because she would not go to a different student. She made me read and stumble and work to get through words. She would help me sound them out. And it was something that I never experienced before a teacher taking the time to help, looking, I would look around the classroom, ready to fight because I'm like, whoever I see laughing at me, I'm going to come for them. Didn't happen. School choice changed my outlook on education and changed my life. I went from making D's and F's consistently to making A's and B's. I became the first in my family to graduate from high school. I went on to receive my undergraduate degree and my master's degree, and have spent, a lot of time advocating for school choice. Because not only did I see the difference that it made in my life, but I also saw the challenges along the way that threatened my immediate success in education, when I was in high school, the teacher's union sued the Florida program, they sued the Florida tax credit scholarship program to say, put all these kids back in public school and I was like, heck no, I'm not going back, and that's something that I saw, I lived through, I marched in Tallahassee at the Capitol was the N.C. And so my siblings, my biological siblings, they did not graduate from high school, they didn't have the same opportunity that I had to go to a private school and get a better, different education. They stayed in the government school and didn't pass didn't graduate. So it makes a world of difference and I get a little, emotional about that because that's still the reality today, of my own immediate family of the neighborhood where I grew up. 

Grant Callen: Yeah, that's so powerful. And I think when we think about school choice, it's a lot of different kids that we're talking about, and some are like you who are really in a place where they're struggling and the school system is traumatic as you put it. And in some cases you have kids who are actually in highly rated, high performing schools, but also struggling. So it's not just about kids who have to get out of a broken public school, sometimes even sometimes kids are struggling in great public schools, right? 

Denisha Allen: Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why I think this new wave of expansion in school choice even when we say school choice, we're now rephrasing it to say education freedom, educational options, because we recognize the fact. Many of these programs like the one that I've benefited from started off as a means tested programs for students who come from low income backgrounds and students who have special needs, special learning needs. But now we recognize that, those special populations, those vulnerable populations need support, but we all do, like they're students to your point who are in schools that are deemed. Amazing, but that's not the right fit for that kid and everybody deserves education freedom and that's a beautiful thing, I tell the story often because I, chuckle because a lot of people get stuck in their ways, but we are supposed to constantly be growing and learning. I did not support universal ESAs early on. I come from a low income, poverty stricken background, and my first thought was kids who grew up like me should benefit from this program. And it wasn't until I moved to D. C. so after I graduated from grad school, I had the opportunity to work for Secretary DeVos at the U. S. Department of Education on the school choice side as youth liaison and school choice liaison, amazing opportunity. I decided to take in my sister, my sister was three grade levels behind hadn't finished, still in elementary school, supposed to be entering high school. And I said, we're going to have a change of environment for you. So I took my biological sister with me to D. C. And I said, I'm going to put her in private school. Do you think I could afford private tuition? Now I was considered middle income based on the money that I was bringing in. So I didn't qualify for the DC voucher. I could not afford private school tuition, even with the monies that I was bringing in. And I said, I'm wrong on this. I am wrong. Universal school choice is good, because although I was making money I couldn't put her in an environment that was going to be conducive for her. She needed a lot of attention, three grade levels behind. She didn't have time to progress year after year. It was the most like her self esteem was so low, being in elementary school and being a teenager. Looking like a grown person next to all those kids. And I couldn't afford to get her into a different educational environment. And that's to your point, that's exactly why the new wave of school choice is so beautiful, because now it gives an opportunity for all families, regardless of their background, regardless of their income to be able to pick the best educational environment for their child. And I think it's amazing, because now we have the opportunities to do these extra things that we all want. And we should have. 

Grant Callen: Yeah. So I want to come back to that growth that you've seen with these programs in Florida. But, first how did you end up in the house chamber, listening to the state of the union and having President Trump call your name?

Denisha Allen: Yeah, that was amazing. I had been maybe since 15 years old advocating for school choice. I've been sharing my story, I started off at small donor, events and as therapy. I was just like every time I share about the trauma I've experienced, I feel a little bit better. Let me just share. So at first it was really, therapeutic and I didn't think much of the policy. To be honest, I didn't think about the implications or what the background work was happening. As it relates to getting these bills passed, getting things accomplished, I didn't think about it, it was therapy, and then insert like I mentioned the teacher's union sued the program in Florida that happened twice. That really hit home for me because there was a little kid at my school. My school went from K to 12 and less than a hundred kids and so very small, and we were shooting this commercial, right? And one of the kids who was in the background, his duty was to just write on the tablet, pretend like he's doing some schoolwork. He started listening, he's wait Denisha, are they going to kick us out of our school? Is that what, and I like tear it up and I'm just like, no, they're not kicking you out of your school, I am going to fight and advocate so that never happens. Fast for more politic is things happening in education choice which happens all the time, I wish it was about the kids not about politics, but unfortunately Mississippi, it's never about the kids. Charlie Chris was governor. He switched over, he was a republican governor, he switched over in Florida to be a democrat governor running to get reelected and he ran on the platform of tearing down the scholarship program, reducing the number of charter schools, and I was one of the kids who was invited to the Capitol to receive the signing pin of him expanding the choice program. So I'm like, what is going on? So time and time again, I saw that okay I need to advocate, I need to share how this has changed my life, I need to share what my views are. And all of that work and all of the advocacy, made its way to the White House, during the State of the Union address for President Trump, and it was actually funny. Funny story. I got this very cryptic email, and I thought it was I'm a very gullible person and so oftentimes people who are close to me have to tell me like, Denisha do not click that email, like I'll make sure I share Hey, is this real? This sounds pretty cool and they're like, Denisha do not, that is spam do not do that and so I did the same thing, I got this like cryptic email we would love for you to come to the White House, and so I'm like, wait a minute before I respond let me send it, and what about, 

Grant Callen: They didn't ask for your bank account or anything, did they? 

Denisha Allen: No, they were like, okay cause it was like short notice like, we need you to come you're invited to come to the White House on Monday and we need you to respond by CLB, and I'm like, this is amazing. And I'm like, wait but this sounds like very weird cause they were like fighting from like all details and it's like random send us your birthday for your flight. And we're like so I sent to one of my friends and he's do it, yes this is real do it, and I'm like, okay and so I have no idea like that this is about to happen. It is amazing and I'm like, of course, I got to sit in the gallery next to the president not next to the president, but his family. And all the other gallery members and it was awesome but it's a little backstory because I actually thought it was, I thought it was spam. I'm glad that I.

Grant Callen: It was a great story and I can remember, I think it was 2017 is that right? I watched the state of the union most years and I was watching. And I was just excited that he was talking about school choice and the need for it, and then to have a recipient of school choice, a beneficiary of school choice in the gallery, which is such a fantastic honor and one that I think you helped bring a lot of recognition to the issue. And a lot of people can see themselves or their kids in your shoes. And so I think that's fantastic. I want to go back to Florida, so one of the things that's interesting to me about choice, or I guess it's sad to me, is that it has been politicized and it's been overtly partisan, where, it's more of a Republican issue than a Democrat issue. And at least in Mississippi, we have seen historically more support for school choice in the white community than the black community. But one of the great stories of Florida, and we tell this, the story of Florida a lot, that 20 years ago Florida was really in a lot of trouble, their education system was not great, and Jeb Bush and others worked to pass a buffet of education options and 20 years later, Florida is now this success story in fact, I looked it up this week, U. S. News and World Report recently made Florida said Florida is the number one state in the nation for education achievement. And today, 48 percent of the kids in Florida, so one in two kids in Florida, are enrolled in a school that's not the one they're zoned for. And what I love about that is that as more kids have exercised choice and chosen to go somewhere where their needs will be met, not only have those kids done better, but the traditional public school has done better too. So as more kids have chosen, it's been this rising tide. And what's more is in Florida, there has and I've witnessed this from afar, there's been growing support in the minority community so that this is not just a Republican white issue in Florida. Why has that developed and do you see signs that's happening in other parts across the country? 

Denisha Allen: Yeah Grant you totally, not the nail on the head, because in Florida, and it did, you gave a great historical spotlight, because it's been going on for more than 30 years now, laying the groundwork. And I think people of course in other states forget that there's been a lot of work that's happened in the state of Florida to get to all of the successes that we have now. Like you mentioned, starting with Governor Bush, with public school accountability, with raising teachers salary, there's been a lot of things that have happened. He was the first to, start this grading system for public schools to say, hey we need more transparency. And the traditional public school space, so let's give them a letter grade, it sounds small, but think now where that's how we understood later that, hey there are kids who are relegated to poor performing schools that have been ranked F, and so how that has changed the landscape of academic outcomes, and then insert yet he had a voucher program that was proposed and it failed, and then it was brought to another scholarship program, which is what we had with the tax credit program. But if it hadn't been for his initial voucher proposal to get that groundwork laid it was shot down. We wouldn't have had a tax credit scholarship. And then over the years, there have been a lot of groundwork with mobilizing parents, mobilizing pastors, mobilizing school leaders to fight for this scholarship program. I told you how just during my lifetime, the teachers union sued the program twice. Florida had the largest parental choice rally to fight that first lawsuit over 10, 000 parents and students marched the Capitol in Tallahassee during the second lawsuit, Martin Luther King the third, the son, was the MC. He gave a keynote address for that second lawsuit had over 18 I believe, thousand people come march the Capitol in Florida and time and time again, when there have been gubernatorial elections, parents have stood up time and time again to say, we want our choices. We want our freedom. We want school choice, and that's been the consistent thing that has happened through our last gubernatorial election with Governor Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gillum, that made national headlines and the black moms were said to flip the vote. In favor of Ron DeSantis, solely based on his support for choice programs and expanding school choice. There was a long wait list for the tax credit scholarship program. He ran on his first day in office, eliminating the wait list and giving a special scholarship for those people who are on wait list. Andrew Gillum. A black Democrat ran on eliminating the entire choice program and defunding charter schools. So for the past 30 plus years, there've been these drops in the bucket and so for in other states, that's the playbook we're running this game now of instant big reforms, not to say that can't happen, but there was a lot of groundwork that went into that and then that's not mentioning the marketing, the communications and the operation side of running programs and making sure that people know about them. And that's some of the work that I do with Black Minds Matter. I will go into a meeting and say to parents I remember this one meeting I had in Jacksonville, and there were some parents who were in the neighborhood where I grew up with the schools are still crappy. And I'm like had some parents and they were skeptical, of skeptics, like shouldn't we make the public schools better and I'm like, the public schools were crap when you went there, they were crap, when I went there, they're crap now your kids go there? Why should they have to wait? And just that public changing of the narrative, that's something that's definitely been able to happen. And so in other states, I think it's definitely important to recognize and to I'm biased, I love Florida and I think in other states we definitely have seen a lot of growth. Arizona, they beat us with having the first universal program and have seen a tremendous amount of support and students take advantage and on the flip side, we are constantly talking about, as we should, the benefits for families, but one of the things that we see that's happening in states like Arizona, states like Florida, is that with the expansion of the universal ESAs, education entrepreneurs are now coming in and creating learning environments for students. And so there's been this increase of academic innovation, education innovation to create all of these learning environments that the students are taking advantage of and excelling in, to be honest. 

Grant Callen: So you mentioned Black Minds Matter, this is an organization you founded. What's this all about? 

Denisha Allen: So I started Black Minds Matter in 2020 with an Op Ed, talk about communications and so in 2020, that was the year that George Floyd was murdered the country, even the whole world, there were protests and riots happening in other countries all for racial justice, police brutality, everybody wanted to correct and make America, make the country a more civil and just society for African Americans, for minorities writ large, and we were canceling things left and right, we cancel Aunt Jemima, that will never ceased to hit home for me. We canceled pancakes and syrup, but not the academic outcomes for black kids. And that made me frustrated. We've been fighting for education freedom for a very long time and the number one population that has the worst outcomes on every scale of black kids. They test below every minority group. We're always talking about closing the white black achievement gap. But there was nothing during that time of 2020 to focus on prevention and I thought the number one prevention mechanism for society for ill behavior and youth and criminal justice system to eliminate the school to prison pipeline, is to give kids a great education and how do we do that? We allow them the freedom to choose the best educational opportunity for their kids and to do anything, but that is the biggest form of racism to me, that's unjust and it is the civil rights issue of our time. And I brought a lot of those frustrations up, in an Op Ed and that gained some attraction new people who were not involved in a movement began to reach out and say that's really interesting, you should go further with this, what else do you have to say about this? And it was funny, actually because I'm like, we've been saying this forever.

Grant Callen: Right? This wasn't new.

Denisha Allen: But it was a new way to frame it, we have conservative lingo, we have progressive lingo, liberal lingo and so to say Black Minds Matter with such vivid force and firmness was new. And so I just ran with it, we launched the website and I went to a black founded school, so my school was started by my pastor, she is black and she started a private through her church. And I'm like, I thought every black kid went to a black founded school and talking no, actually it's not necessarily the case so we started and launched the first directory of black founded schools, when we launched it, we had about 200 schools that we found across the country that were black founded. And we began to share their stories, being to talk to these education founders about why they decided to start their schools. And it was overwhelming that they wanted to start a school to help better the education outcomes for students and so we had all of these, of course my story is a firsthand account as to why many of the myths around school choice are false. Another myth around school choice is that, Oh, it serves the elite. Oh the only kids who are benefiting, they're the ones that are going to the hoity toity schools Simwell and Friends, or the schools of choice are taking the crème de crème of public school students. And so that's why they're having such positive academic outcomes is because the public schools are left with the worst quote unquote worst kids to educate, and the private schools and charter schools took the kids who are fine, and that's how they're able to have positive academic outcomes. Another firsthand account, when we talked to black school founders, they didn't have a lot of money, first of all to launch these schools. They didn't take the creme de creme. They were mostly serving lower income kids from their communities, most of them were former public school teachers. And so they were educators who wanted to help even more, and so we started sharing these stories, started talking about the history of black founded schools, how this isn't something that is not new or born from the modern day school choice. These are people who, the history of black people founding and owning and operating schools has been around since there have been black people in this country. And so they're just been Rosenwald, talk about the Rosenwald schools with the partnership between Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald. So there have just been so many gems and opportunities to myth bust and to control our narrative to spotlight and encourage for more innovation and increase opportunity for black and brown kids across America, and while doing this being very present in the media and changing how we talk about school choice with democratic elected officials, because education freedom is, should be a very bipartisan issue, and so making one, making the language more bipartisan, and welcoming is something too that is been a part of that.

Grant Callen: I love that. And I love your story and I love the work you're doing today to continue to raise awareness, and push for these policies in states across the country. Let me close with this question. We are seeing in Mississippi a lot of these black founded schools that you're talking about, we're seeing black moms start micro schools in Mississippi. We're seeing church schools that are in black churches that's growing, and similarly we're seeing growing interest and appetite amongst the legislative black caucus, and in places that have historically communities that have historically not been for school choice but we still have a long way to go. What would you tell Mississippi lawmakers about voting for policies like this when they represent kids that are in situations very similar to your situation that you grow up in, what would you tell them?

Denisha Allen: Lawmakers in Mississippi, it's time to stand up for students. We've done with supporting systems. We want to see for every kid, in the state across the country to be in an education environment that best fits their needs that best fits their interest and money should not be a barrier. The money belongs to the child, it does not belong to the system. So thinking about public education in educating the public should be at the forefront of everybody's mind. If we can directly fund kids in the pre-k, preschool space and give them a voucher to go to whatever daycare they want public, private, home based, if we can give a voucher directly from the government, for kids to go to colleges and universities and not discriminate based on who gets it, based on their income, based on their background, whatever, how much more should we ensure that every kid in the K through 12 space has the opportunity to go to whatever school best meets their needs, interests, and it should not be based on their zip code, should not be based on where they live, it should be a freedom and opportunity to receive the highest quality of education that best meets their needs. And for me, as the founder of Black Minds Matter, I'm particularly aware that black and brown kids are not receiving the best education in their zoned public schools, and that's not right. They deserve the freedom to try something new, to try something different. And that should not just be a right of the wealthy. And I think that it's time out. This is not some theory. It's been proven, it's been tested, it's shown that kids who benefit from education freedom have higher academic outcomes, higher self esteem, higher college acceptance and graduation rates. And they also have shown to have lower in non socially accepted areas such as teen pregnancy and suicide and violence, crime. My own experience, I've benefited from school choice, and I think that it made the world of difference in my life. And I'd like it for every kid to have that same opportunity.

Grant Callen: What a great place to end it. People can find you at Black Minds Matter, and Denisha I'm so thankful for the work you're doing and thank you for joining us today. 

Denisha Allen: Thank you, Grant.

Grant Callen: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of the Empower podcast. To learn more about how you can get involved and we can work together to make Mississippi a place where everyone can rise, go to our website at empowerms. org. Please or subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you'll be notified of future episodes.