January is a month when history is very much on people's minds. The start of a new year invites reflection on the year, and years, past. And the annual mid-month commemoration of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminds millions that the struggle for freedom and equality continues.

As LEAP Innovations’ CEO Phyllis Locket puts forth in her commentary "What Would Dr. King Say About the Future of American Education?", if Dr. King were alive today "he would look for fairness and find inequity in funding...for hope and find inequity in student achievement. He would challenge us to work harder, rise above our differences and march forward together..."

In the incredibly thoughtful and forward-looking piece, Phyllis reminds us that expecting great results when we believe we can educate all students with the same uniform approach is short-sighted.

Dr. King might also feel hope and despair in where we find ourselves on the 35th anniversary of the release of “A Nation at Risk.” In the three-and-a-half decades since that landmark report was issued, the nation has come a long way in changing conventional notions of schooling. There have been great strides toward correcting a generation of mythology that once posited school district voices were superior to parents’ voices in matters of educating their kids. No longer is poverty an excuse for failure and the thinking that simply requiring certain subjects be taught will result in their mastery, and on and on.

To be sure, the progress has been slow, but it has been steady, and the last 35 years have seen failing schools closed for the first time in history, and whole communities can choose to find other schools (Detroit and Washington, for example), because, thanks to reforms, there are other schools to be chosen.

That’s progress. And while 180 years of uniform, top-down schooling will take a few more years to bust, if history tells us one thing, it’s that change does happen – if we’re willing to make it happen.

But despite these accomplishments, where Dr. King would despair would be over how many communities – particularly poor communities both rural and urban, and communities of color – still do not have options and opportunities for quality learning.

That, as much as any other reason, is why educational opportunity for all learners was celebrated on Capitol Hill on January 18th to kick-off National School Choice Week – and why education choice needs to be the law of the land.

Without it, progress is too slow, accomplishment too rare, and chances for success too far out of reach for far too many children.

Jeanne Allen (@JeanneAllen) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is CEO and founder of the Center for Education Reform.

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