To black pastors, Vance makes pitch for school choice

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania — Last year, pastor Joshua Robertson told Joya Schreurs at the Center for Public Justice a powerful story about how he came to be the pastor he is today. It was a harrowing journey that included a shocking secret that nearly kept him from achieving his potential after high school .

Robertson, a star high school athlete who played basketball and football , had gone through the entire public school system and never learned to read.

Robertson told Schreurs that he could not pass the SAT exams, thus missing out on 25 Division 1A offers out of high school. That led him to attend a school he said he did not really want to attend, Gardner-Webb University, in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. He played there his freshman year, but he failed out in the first semester with a .67 GPA.

When the bishop of the church at which he played the organ while in North Carolina asked when he would come back for classes in January, he told him he failed and was not going back.

“What he didn’t know was that when he called me, I was helping a guy take about $50,000 worth of heroin to Altoona, Pennsylvania,” Robertson told Schreurs. “This bishop didn’t know that, right? But he just started saying to me, ‘Whatever you’re doing right now, you’re about to ruin your life, aren’t you?’”

After the fifth time the pastor pressed him, Robertson said he was in tears. The bishop pleaded with him to come back to North Carolina, telling him they’d figure it out together. Robertson went back down and enrolled at Cleveland Community College in Shelby, North Carolina. And that semester, the bishop taught him to read.

Today, Robertson has his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and on Saturday, he hosted Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice presidential candidate, and libertarian vice presidential candidate Mike ter Maat for a town hall centered on education and school choice.

Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the Democratic vice presidential nominee, was invited but did not attend.

Robertson took a little heat ahead of the town hall for an op-ed he wrote that was published in Newsweek titled, “I’m a black pastor. Here’s why I’m not endorsing Kamala Harris.”

Jeff Coleman, host of Morning Light, said Robertson took some online heat after the event for having Vance at the town hall centered on education.

Robertson wrote in his commentary in Newsweek that black communities don't simply need politicians who have the same skin color as they do. Instead, he wrote, “We need politicians who back the principles and policies that matter to us. Especially on the civil rights issue of our time — education freedom.”

Robertson, an outspoken supporter of school choice, moderated the town hall, which was hosted by Black Pastors United for Education at Rock Church in the Allison Hill neighborhood of Harrisburg.

Robertson began the event by telling Vance he appreciated him showing up at a small church in the middle of Harrisburg to talk about the important topic of education in America.

“I want to first say thank you for your willingness to come to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and talk to a local church pastor and congregation,” Robertson said.

He then joked with Vance about the mix-up of whether this was a Vance rally or a public forum, causing laughter in the pews and from both men. “We are so glad you are here,” Robertson said, leaning in to face Vance, both men sitting in gray cushioned seats on the stage.

“I hope you feel the love of God, hospitality from Christian people, and that you know this is a public space to have a public conversation,” Robertson said. “Some things we are going to talk about are going to be difficult. It is a serious conversation I believe we are up for the challenge.”

The crowd was a mix of black congregants dressed in their best church clothes and Trump-Vance supporters dressed in their casual, pro-Trump patriotic gear.

“It was really a beautiful thing to see,” radio host Coleman, who sat next to Vance’s wife Usha, said of the contrasting styles.

Coleman called the town hall informative and said he was able to see a side of Vance, while discussing the similarities between the poor white and poor black children struggling to get a good education, that he had never seen before.

During the discussion with Robertson, Vance said expanding school choice uplifts children who live in failing school districts. The Middletown, Ohio, native pointed out that those opportunities are opposed by the education unions that argue school choice takes money away from the public schools they teach in.

“When you give parents and the people who care the most about these children the control over those kids' education, they're going to choose better than anybody else what's best for their kid,” Vance said. “But a lot of people can't choose because they don't have the money, and I grew up in a family where we didn't have the money.”

“Voters need to see more of this,” Coleman, a close friend of Robertson, said of the topics discussed in the town hall. “I suspect it is something that maybe isn’t covered enough.”

Coleman, a traditional Republican and former two-term member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, explained that Allison Hill is a historically black neighborhood that features “breathtaking” architecture on old mansions that line some of the streets.

The neighborhood heads east along Market Street, heading out of downtown Harrisburg, and sits on a bluff along the Susquehanna River. “It was once a predominantly black neighborhood that has now expanded to include Hispanic, West African, and Vietnamese,” Coleman explained.

Coleman said Robertson is trying through his Rock City Learning Center to be the mentor for the children in his neighborhood the bishop was for him when he was 19: “He has a vision of giving back and lifting up, and I’m so glad to see that highlighted here.”

Vance said it is a national scandal that all races in our country are not getting a quality education and that too much school funding goes to administrators and not teachers and students.

“I do think it requires a little bit of the teachers having, the teachers unions and leadership of the teachers unions, having a coming to Jesus moment, no pun intended, and saying to the American people, ‘Yeah, we screwed up.’”

Vance said one solution is for scholarships or vouchers for parents or grandparents caring for a child to be used to make the educational choice that makes the most sense for each family.

Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump said education was the “civil rights issue of our age.”

Robertson’s passion comes in part from falling in the cracks in the education system. If someone isn’t on track for excellent reading by the fourth grade, he or she could get stuck without opportunities as an adult and, even worse, have a life on the edges.

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Data showed last year that nationally, school systems showed the largest drop in math scores in 50 years, according to the Nation’s Report Card, short for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Worst yet, in an average Pennsylvania fourth-grade classroom of 20 children, only seven students can read proficiently, with only 20% of Hispanic students, 18% of economically disadvantaged students, and 11% of black students reading proficiently.

The report noted Pennsylvania’s reading scores are lower than they were two decades ago while holding the negative distinction of having the largest socioeconomic achievement gaps in the country.