Something seems to have woken up the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After years of political sleepwalking through the worst of the Conservative backlash and the rise of Neoliberalism, the veteran Civil Rights organization has taken a courageous stance against the expansion of charter schools in New York City. Despite heavy pressure from politically well-connected charter owners and even a march on their Harlem office by pro-charter school parents, NAACP spokespeople have held strong to their opposition. The President of the New York State Chapter of the group, Hazel Dukes, even turned up the temperature of the conflict by publicly stating that those parents who support charters are serving the interests of the “slave masters.”
This struggle has, thus far, been carried out in the courtroom and on the pages of the daily newspapers in New York City. The controversy began when the NAACP joined in with a United Federation of Teachers (UFT) lawsuit that aims to block charters who are trying to invade school buildings that currently contain public schools. The tactic is called “co-location” and it is an important measure employed by charter schools looking to establish themselves in a neighborhood and eventually muscle out the local public school.
It takes a lot to make the politically insulated charter owners blink, but the dual effort of the UFT and the NAACP has certainly struck a nerve. A June 2, 2011 opinion piece in the Daily News penned by the United Negro College Fund President Michael Lomax and the infamous former Washington DC, schools chief Michelle Rhee lambasted the NAACP for allegedly, “fighting to deprive kids and families of better educational options.” Later the pair turned to a bit of race baiting by claiming, “It's [the NAACP] fighting not for the right of kids of color to get a good education.” They ended with a shameless misuse of the great African-American radical thinker and founder of the NAACP, W.E.B. DuBois.
To the surprise of many, the NAACP held its ground. A June 8, 2011 Daily News piece by President Benjamin Todd Jealous responded to Lomax and Rhee sharply. “The NAACP,” Jealous wrote “believes the city should prioritize fixing these inequities so that every child in New York City - not just the 4% who enter charter schools by lottery - has an opportunity to succeed academically.” The Civil Rights activist went on to vividly paint of picture of the disparities between well-financed charter schools and their cashed starved public school counterparts.
Of course, Jealous stopped short of declaring war against the charters. For instance he might have mentioned the growing number of research reports that indicate that charter schools have failed to live up to the myths of success produced by inflated advertising budgets. For instance, a 2009 study by CREDO, an educational research project of Stanford University, reported that in reading, 72 percent of New York City charter schools are producing results that are the same or worse than comparative public schools. Credo’s national study found that 37 percent of charter schools produce results that are significantly worse than a typical public school and another 46 percent are about the same. Such less than impressive performances come by measuring the very things that charters are supposed to excel at – the anti-education technique of teaching to the test. Even by their own measure of success charters are mediocre at best.
Reservations aside, the NAACP may have drawn an important political line in the sand. Thus far, the charter schools have successfully won the allegiance of a critical section of African-American parents in New York City. These are parents who have made the wrong political decision for the right personal reasons. Faced with a crumbling public education system, the conditions of which have, in part, been produced by the siphoning of funds by the charters, they have migrated to privately owned schools. They, like other parents, want the best education for their children.
Yet, what the charters offer are little more than militaristic rote learning aimed at, but still unable to, pumping up test scores and fattening their own bottom lines. Enter Hazel Dukes' caustic retort about serving the slave masters. Much like their 19th century counterparts, the charter owners, and the Wall Street financiers who back them, are interested in only one thing – increasing profits. And they don’t care how many young lives, especially the lives of young people of color, are ruined in the process.
So, kudos to the NAACP for taking such a courageous stand. If charters lose the support of a section of the African-American community it is possible to begin to think about the real reform New york City schools needed - namely, the complete elimination of all charter schools. This would, in turn, open a space to begin serious initiatives to transform the public education system in this City. Parents may finally wake up to the idea that our children’s collective educational potential is far more complex and precious than any standardized test. They deserve an education system capable of encouraging their curiosity not reducing their dreams to multiple choice questions.
***
Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and the editor of the Socialist WebZine. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the NYC Indypendent, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine. He can be reached at whartonbilly@gmail.com. Become a FAN on Facebook.
Comments