Why The NAACP Said Enough To School Privatization
Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.
The reaction to the NAACP’s hard-hitting new report on charter schools, calling for tighter regulation and an end to for-profit schools, was swift and furious. Charter advocates and school choice proponents painted the NAACP as out of touch, or worse, doing the bidding of the teachers unions. These critics are missing what’s most important about the civil rights group’s strong statement. School privatization has allowed state governments to avoid their obligation to educate children of color, especially the poor. The NAACP said “enough” this week.
First, some background. Last year, the NAACP passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools until problems with accountability and the loss of funding from traditional public schools are addressed. The civil rights organization then formed an education task force that spent the year visiting cities, including New Haven, Memphis, New Orleans and Detroit. The report issued this week expands on the previous resolution and reflects the testimony of parents and practitioners. Among the task force’s recommendations: tighter regulations and oversight for existing charters, a ban on for-profit charters, and a reinvestment in traditional public schools.
In response, charter advocates were quick to take their case to the press, citing school performance data and polls on the popularity of charter schools among Black parents. Think pieces and commentaries have called out the NAACP as irrelevant, under the sway of the nation’s two teachers unions, and too willing to ignore the failings of public education. As school choice advocate Chris Stewart wrote in his response to the NAACP report: “If the NAACP is honest, it will apply the same demands to all public schools. If it cares about the education of Black kids, it will stay focused on the inequities in the system."
http://www.nationalmemo.com/naacp-said-enough-school-privatization/
Then there is the Devos person running the Dept of Education
