In 2000, minorities comprised 10 percent of Republican delegates. This year, they made up 17 percent, according to the Joint Centers for Policy and Economic Studies.
 
Alice Williams, an administrator in a medical access program in Pittsburgh, was one of those delegates.
 
"I changed my party affiliation in the 1990s," said Williams, who at the time was elected to the school board as a Democrat.
 
"I lived in a school district that had the lowest test scores in the state of Pennsylvania, and the population was about 99 percent African American. We fought so hard to bring in a company as a consultant to improve one of our schools, but we had a teachers union that fought us every step of the way. I decided then that I didn't need to be part of a party that continued to say that they are for education, health care and jobs in our community and they do not support the very essence of our community, which is our children."

Virginia Walden Ford, founder and chairwoman of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, the grass-roots organization that successfully lobbied for school choice in the D.C. public schools, also left the Democratic Party disappointed.
 
"I went from being a Democrat most of my adult life to being an independent to gradually getting involved in the school choice movement. We got so much support from the Republicans, I changed over," she said.
 
Although Democrats bash Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, those same Democrats rarely mention that one of the architects of the plan is Rod Paige, an African American who was appointed Education secretary in the Bush administration. Having attended segregated schools in his youth, I'm convinced that despite the act's shortcomings, Paige is committed to challenging what the Republicans call the "soft bigotry of low expectations."