Julian Vasquez Heilig reports on his blog Cloaking Inequity that the National NAACP passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on charters.
Read the text of the resolution.
Delegates to the 2016 national convention of the NAACP in Cincinnati passed a resolution expressing their concern about the lack of public governance, the targeting of low-income communities of color, increased segregation, and harsh disciplinary policies associated with charter schools.
Do you think that the Walton family, ALEC, the hedge fund managers, Scott Walker, Pat McCrory, and every other Republican governor will stop claiming the mantle of the civil rights movement, now that their favorite “reform” policy has been denounced by the real civil rights movement?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Charters, aka, segregated obedience training schools.
Wow! Tide turned. Sea changed. Watershed.
“It’s approval as policy will not be official until the National Board meeting in the Fall of 2016.”
Expect the SluiceGate$ of Gate$, Inc. et al. to open up and buy them off again.
A worry of mine also.
Sad. But money talks and mostly it lies. Wonder if there is a way to support NAACP to stay strong.
I do not think so. The NAACP is receiving pressure from its membership to address this issue. The best kept secret of the charter impact is the large number of teachers of color who have (due to the charters’ practice of firing teachers of color and replacing them with young white teachers) seen their middle class status drop. In most cases, these teachers have been unable to find employment relegating them to work in low paying jobs without benefits and job security. The teachers have made their frustration known to a number of groups including the NAACP. The future of the NAACP depends on their response to this issue.
STEP number one: to admit that these teachers have been viciously and intentionally targeted by the test-score reformers. So many people still want to say that, oh, well, these teachers and so many more out there are just “bad.”
vze3rylk,
Thank you for adding the information. It’s an important point, absent from the pro-charter monologue.
Good news, hopefully this will begin the process of debunking their ‘civil right” talking point. Goes to show how good they have been at marketing—up is down, cats are dogs, etc.
While the NAACP may be late to the party, we welcome them with open arms. I have been waiting for them to see that school “choice” is really about establishing separate and unequal schools for poor minority students. Also, “choice” is more about economics than education. It is a rigged system that is classist and racist at its core while it allows the wealthy to profit from poor students. This is the hypocrisy of the “civil rights issue of our times.”
NAACP also had charter resolutions in 2010 and 2014. Check out https://cloakinginequity.com/2016/07/28/naacp-has-weighed-in-do-charterscivil-rights/
Dr. JVH
Yes but they did not have the record of fraud, waste, and impotence that has accrued since then. As curtain gets pulled back, expect many to change their views.
“Every form of darkness contains the seeds of self-destruction.”
This gives us important ammunition as we try to make the point with our own elected officials that supporting charters is supporting segregation. I talked with Julian this morning and then sent off a quick post to my list in Los Angeles! Thank you, Julian Vasquez Heilig and the NAACP! http://www.psconnectnow.org/blog/2016/7/29/breaking-naacp-calls-for-moratorium-on-charter-schools
It legitimizes all the concerns education leaders and experts like Diane have been writing about and have been attempting to shed a light on for years. It is easy for “reformers” to dismiss a few “renegade” bloggers or try to blame any dissent on teachers unions; they cannot ignore the NAACP, and neither can policymakers. Thank goodness! Let’s hope it forces our leaders to seriously attempt to improve our urban public schools through democratic means.
I am sure it will influence the positions of the two candidates for president.
Talking Civil Rights ,my vote for most inspiring(sincere) speech last night of a leader at the DNC , the Reverend Barber
Now this is good news so the major civil rights organization in the country calls for a moratorium on charters . So what is the going to be the response . We do have a model for this .
When the Sierra Club , 350.org ,Green Peace , and just about every other environmental organization in the world came out against the program to cede democratic control to multinational corporations . The agreement designed to eliminate tariffs that for the most part no longer exist. The agreement that as Dean Baker says will make us ,if all goes well ,as rich in March of 2030 as we would have been in April of 2030 without it They searched high and low and came up with the World Wild Life Fund willing to prostitute themselves and support the TPP.
My prediction the once legitimate but now thoroughly discredited Congress of Racial Equality will become the wealthiest Civil Rights organization in the Nation .
Having joined the ranks of the retired,I am looking for a little extra income. I am laying odds on this one.
The so-called “education reform” movement has always been based on a return racial segregation of America’s schools. The fact that billionaires and hedge funds could pocket tens of millions of dollars from this new kind of segregation was just a bonus for many. The first calls for “reform” in the form of vouchers arose immediately after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education in which the Court declared that separate but equal was inherently unequal and ordered racial integration of the public schools. That ruling triggered “white flight” from public schools to private schools — but parents quickly realized that the tuition cost of private schools was more than they wanted to pay out-of-pocket. That realization led political and private resegregationists to the concoct the “reform” of vouchers, and to sell it to eager parents by deceptively marketing it then (and now) as merely giving parents free “choice.”
But the 1950’s voucher reform faded away when it became clear that because of school attendance boundaries no more than a few token blacks would be attending formerly all-white public schools. In 1972 when the Supreme Court finally ordered busing to end the ongoing de facto segregation, the reform movement rose from its grave and has been alive ever since then trying new tactics to restore racial segregation because it’s unlikely that the Court’s racial integration order can ever be reversed. When it became clear in the 1980’s that vouchers would never become widespread, the segregationists tried many other routes to restore racial segregation, and the most successful has been charter schools because charter schools can be sold to blithely unaware do-gooder billionaires as well as to unscrupulous profiteers who recognized charter schools as a way to divert vast amounts of tax money into their own pockets and into the pockets of supportive politicians at every level of government.
An essential part of the strategy to mask their underlying motives has been for segregationists to sell the public on the necessity for charter schools because public schools are allegedly “failing.” With all manner of “research” that essentially compares apples to oranges against foreign nations’ students, and with the self-fulfilling prophecy of dismal public school performance generated by drastic underfunding of public schools, and with condemnation of public school teachers based on statistically invalid student test scores, the segregationists are succeeding in resegregating education in America via what are basically private charter schools that are funded with public money.
Let’s hope that all the money that will be now thrown toward the NAACP doesn’t sway them from doing the moral thing and following through on their opposition to this pernicious form of racial segregation. The future of hundreds of thousands of black children depend on the NAACP keeping the faith.
Is this the same NAACP that wanted testing and charters in the new NCLB, ESSA? Am I mistaken? Wasn’t the NAACP WITH reform before it was against it?
Some times it takes a while to get past the noise and the group think especially when powerful forces are sweetening the pie . This applies
to far more than education.
Donna.
Before ESSA was passed, about 30 members of the 200 member of the “Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights” lobbied Congress and USDE to continue the use of use of disaggregated test scores as if this was the only “objective” way to identify disparities in education. NAACP, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., participated in this effort.
Of course, the charter industry exploits these disaggregated measures to justify their test-centric schools and to promise they can do better than public schools in providing ”high quality seats” in struggling urban districts.
In April of 2016, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights sent a letter to John King requesting that these features of ESSA not be compromised in the guidance letters he might issue to states.
http://www.civilrights.org/advocacy/letters/2016/ESSA-implementation-framework.html
Also in April, the “Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights” published a survey of African American and Latino parents on what they want from schools. The survey promotion
had this headline and lead-in:
“Parents: Schools Not Preparing Students of Color for Future.” http://www.colorlines.com/articles/parents-schools-not-preparing-students-color-future
The survey was conducted by Anzalone, Liszt, Grove Research “a public opinion research firm specializing in message development and strategic consulting. For nearly 20 years, we have helped clients ranging from President Obama, to EMILY’S List, to Microsoft achieve their goals.”
The Survey promotion continued “From lack of funding to low expectations, a new survey finds that Black and Latino parents don’t trust public schools to help their kids succeed.”
Given this lead-in, I thought the survey might deal with “trust in public schools.” Not so. In fact we do not know much about the survey other than the published methodology does not meet minimal standards for research: For example, we do not know if the parents who participated in the survey by landline or mobile phone had children in public, charter, or parochial schools. We do know that the 400 African American and 400 Latino participants lived in Chicago or in Philadelphia. Perhaps Julian can discern the messaging function of the survey get the full survey not just the survey, and discern why the headlines were framed around “trust in public schools.”
https://www.dropbox.com/s/99tklsqp6aykxgk/New Education Majority poll summary.pdf?dl=0
My impression is that this is a push poll created to support a messaging campaign. I note, for example, that the “Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights” received $878,338 in October 2015 from the Gates Foundation ”to make the national education policy conversation more reflective and inclusive of a civil rights framework of equity and access by including more diverse voices and perspectives.” That is Gates-speak for promoting access to charter schools.
“Reformers” need to understand that disaggregating data is a way to pinpoint how various subgroups perform on a test. It is not an intervention; it is a way of defining subgroups. “Reformers” like the results of testing to target certain students for a charter school. Many times this is like targeting poor minority students for a segregated school as poor minority students are often among the low performers.
The NAACP supported testing to ensure accountability and equal educational experiences for all students. Remember, public education has it blemishes also.
Testing doesn’t assure accountability. We should have learned that after 15 years of NCLB-RTTT.
Testing and VAM/SLOs have doing NOTHING to improve teaching and learning.
Any policy that is built on a foundation of utterly false assumptions is doomed to failure.
They also issued a statement not more than 10 years ago against standardized testing
I AM DEFINITELY AGAINST CHARTER SCHOOLS AND I GO BACK O THE 70S WITH THE BUSING SO NOW LET ME ASK WHAT ARE THE CHARTER SCHOOLS DOING TO ME THEY ARE GOING BACKWARDS AND THOSE PARENTS ARE ONLY BEING USED AS WELL AS THERE CHILDREN BECAUSE DO YOU NOT THINK THAT THESE PEOPLE LIKE EVA MOSKOWITZ CARES ABOUT YOUR KIDS DO YOU REALIZE HOW MANY KIDS ARE SENT BACK BECAUS THE CHARTER SCHOOLS DO NOT WANT CHILDREN WHO MAY HAVE PROBLEMS WHAT HE PARENTS NEED TO DO IS GET OUR SCHOOLS BACK AND THOSE SCHOOLS ARE NOT DOING WELL SHOULD BE GIVEN MORE MONEY EVERY CHILD IS ENTITLED FOR SMALLER CLASSES AND OUR POLITICIANS HAVE NOT LEARNED AS YET THAT CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
The NAACP should sue the shadowy Western (probably CIA) financeers who are backing the Fetullah Gulen (or Hizmet) 300+ charter schools that are being embedded on US military bases. This Gul organization reportedly has $25 billion and is widely believed to be the shadowy group behind the illegal attempted coup of democratically elected Prime Minister Erdogan in Turkey on July 15th. Not only are these “charter schools” getting an unfair advantage over public schools by being subsidized by the CIA, but there is some evidence from whistleblower Sibel Edmonds that these charter schools embedded on US military bases in the US could be training grounds from radical Islamic terrorists. We need to expose illegal ways the Military Industrial Complex is appropriating public assets that belong to the U.S. taxpayers.
Here in Massachusetts, we are gearing up to fight a ballot question that if passed would lift the statutory cap on charter schools. It would allow the creation of 12 new schools per year, without limitation. Charters could be sited in communities over the objections of that community, and MA DESE has stated that the financial impact of chartes on those communties should not be a consideration in establishing a charter. Great Schools Massachusetts, an astroturf group has hired the same PR firm which gain notoriety for “swiftboating” John Kerry’s presidential bid.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2016/06/27/pro-charter-swift-boat-ad/
Happily, the New England conference of the NAACP has joined a coalition of education activists in a bid to defeat Question 2, under the leadership of Juan Cofield:
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/news/ci_29647546/massachusetts-charter-school-critics-launch-opposition-campaign
The “Charter for Martyr” movement must be stopped! Esto Es demasiado-Basta ya…
I presume that Sen. Sherrod Brown’s crackerjack education policy staff will read the new NAACP memo… years from now.
During her recent campaign, Hillary praised Sen. Sherrod Brown’s popularity in Cincinnati. Brown is labeled a “progressive”, based on his rhetoric (no accomplishment). Brown finally found the issue of charter school fraud this summer and, with tweaking, still advocates for our taxes to be wasted on charter schools. Until this summer, Brown’s highly astute and informed education policy staff were unaware that Gates co-owns, the largest, for-profit, retailer of schools-in-a-box. Is that because the funding for the Senior Congressional Education Staff Network comes from Gates? Would Brown be surprised to learn that David Koch (until the a few weeks ago) was on the Aspen Institute board, while the organization touted its success in influencing education policy? BTW, that Senior Congressional Staff Network is an Aspen program.
So “progressive” Brown, still wants the US Dept. of Ed. to send $71 mil. to Ohio to expand charter schools (his letter posted at the Ravitch blog a few weeks ago). And, the poverty-generating, Walton’s, will kick in, $100 mil. (national estimate), too.
In terms of destruction of the most important common good, public education, Ohioans don’t need Trump, they’ve got, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.
CCSA is working very hard to get people to convince the NAACP to not ratify the charter resolution. Please read the info someone posted elsewhere below, with numbers to call and e-mail address, to express your support of it. The NAACP board votes on it this week:
Please call everyone!
This week the NAACP Board of Directors will vote on the charter school moratorium passed by its delegates earlier this year. We are hearing the vote will be this weekend.
The charter lobby is on fire contacting them.
Call these two numbers and express your support for a moratorium on charter schools. Then send an email to
washingtonbureau@naacpnet.org
NAACP
Hollywood Bureau
Los Angeles, CA
Phone: (323) 938-5268
NAACP
Washington Bureau
1156 15th Street, NW Suite 915
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 463-2940
Look at the link below for a CCSA ad on Facebook telling people to contact NAACP in opposition to the moratorium. If you are on FB, write comments there to debunk theCCSA propaganda:
I don’t know why the link did not show up above?