The death of Linda Brown last week reminds us how far we have come and how far we must go in liberating children to reach their highest potential in schools.

Linda’s father tried to enroll her at Sumner Elementary School near the family’s home in Topeka, Kan., when she was 9 in 1951. Sumner was a good school, within walking distance.

The Topeka Board of Education forbade Linda’s enrollment, insisting she remain at a school for people referred to as “negros.”

Oliver Brown fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with minority families in the 1954 landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. No more would school boards dictate which schools children attend on the basis of color.

The Brown family’s victory was the first step in a long march toward equality for all, which continues today.

Moving forward from improving access to better schools for blacks, Colorado has become a state where people of any ethnic background, neighborhood or socioeconomic status have access to more than just the school down the block.

More than two decades ago, school boards still determined where the vast majority of Colorado children went to school. Students in low-income neighborhoods attended institutions so underfunded they typically underperformed schools in more economically fortunate, mostly white communities.

Colorado children were economically and racially segregated – not by intent but by attendance dictates based on geography. It was the old model, and the Colorado Legislature overhauled it with the bipartisan Charter Schools Act of 1993. The law allows parents, teachers or others to open innovative public schools with charters that focus on music, science, aerospace technology, math, the arts, special education needs, and more.

Charters and open enrollment save children who do not perform well in traditional classrooms. They provide unique opportunities for deaf and blind students. Economically disadvantaged students obtain college credits – even four year degrees – while attending tuition-free schools. Charters help teen parents obtain diplomas.

More than 250 Colorado charter schools serve 120,000 students, which amounts to 13 percent of the state’s total K-12 enrollment. Fifth-one percent of charter students are children of color, compared to 45 percent in traditional schools. Black students comprise 6.1 percent of charter enrollment, compared to only 3.7 percent of traditional enrollment. Hispanics comprise 36 percent of charter enrollment, compared to 33.6 percent at traditional schools.

Much of the rest of the country wants to emulate our school choice model. But Colorado parents, business leaders, and minority communities should not get complacent and take school choice for granted.

Leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cary Kennedy worries about escalating choice and school competition, and the Colorado Education Association and American Federation of Teachers endorses her.

“I’m concerned that we’d build a system where the success of some schools is coming at the expense of other schools,” Kennedy said at a candidate’s forum in October.

The teachers unions backed anti-choice candidates successfully in nearly every 2018 Colorado school board election, and will fund and support candidates who want to move our system backward.

“Teachers unions hate school choice, which is why they’ve consistently worked overtime to hide their involvement in local school board elections,” explaines former Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler in a column for The Denver Post.

School choice began next door in Kansas, 64 years ago, and improved the life of Linda Brown and millions of other children throughout the country. Colorado continues perfecting the concept, by increasing competition and options for families from all walks of life. Let’s protect school choice, and avoid reverting to limitations of the past.