Jennifer Berkshire reviews here the recent uproar created by Mystic Valley Regional Charter School’s policy of banning certain black hair styles. This is known as #braidgate.
The charter has many problems. It does not listen to its “customers.” It has been the source of numerous complaints from parents, teachers, and students. Usually, it ignores the complaints, because..it can.
Berkshire recites some of the more notorious recent controversies. And also the kinds of complaints that come up again and again.
But Mystic Valley is the largest charter school with the longest waiting list in the state. Does anyone care if it punishes children harshly? Does anyone care about the complaints of exclusionary admissions? Does anyone care that a teacher was fired $6,000 when he said he would not return the next year?
In this brave new world, high test scores excuse all kinds of behaviors, including racism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I followed this story, living in the state next door. How sad that it took the state attorney general having to go to court and have three portions of the policy struck down—being that the charter prohibits hair that is more than 2 inches in thickness and height; shaved lines or shaved sides; and hair extensions. It took the state to determine what the school should have known all along: that the policy was racist & discriminatory.
But what is even more pathetic is that the AG letter will be reviewed by the board of trustees”
Reviewed? Why? Are they going to challenge the decision? What they should do is review their discriminatory practices to the students.
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What teacher, I am compelled to ask, has the time, will, or energy to enforce a rule this stupid, not to mention arguably racist?
Man, it’s hard to imagine how anybody thinks this is a good idea….
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Well, if their goal is to produce little clones who will all act the same, look the same, and score the same on standardized tests, then I guess they thought this was a good idea.
😔
What the he!! are some of these so-called “schools” doing to our children?
And they are all “our children.”
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Citizens, with public school students and parents understood to be such, have inalienable rights that give them standing to affect policies that impact them. “Customers,” on the other hand, have no such power, and are subject to the whims of managerial and shareholder policy. This is a major reason why our Overclass is pushing so aggressively and with such unanimity for charter schools and vouchers: to strip people of their rights (and money), and have all decision-making power accrue to them.
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SCREAM!
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Indeed, Yvonne.
Is it too early for a cocktail?
{{Sigh}}
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Well, I see it’s afternoon when you posted this and it is five o’clock somewhere so. . . why not?
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This school is in my district and I have had several of my preschool students move on to this school, much to my dismay. The parents all told me that it was “better” than a “regular” public school. There have been issues at this school for years. Hoodwinked again. Will this injustice wake them up??
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I always found hair parted on the side disruptive. What’s the objective test for a hair style? If fifty dollar weaves are an equity issue, then cosmetic orthodontia would have to be against the school rules as well.
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fired? in think you meant fined. In any case, the hairstyle matter was settled because it might have cost too much money, what with one savvy mother getting the ACLU and other legal eagles involved.
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My question is “Why do parents who have complaints continue to keep their children enrolled at these schools?”
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I have several acquaintances who have children who attend this school and had a long conversation about with someone yesterday. This is one parents’ reasoning as I understand it for not leaving. She is aware that the school is extremely racist but the extremely strict style is in keeping with their family values and similar to the British system she and her husband grew up with abroad. She feels like her son is carefully and strictly monitored and made to do his work and might simply be overlooked and ignored at a large public school and feels like the educational opportunities are far better than her son would receive at their local public school. She felt like that it went too far when her son told her that female black students were indeed pulled from class and marched down to the nurses office for hair inspections and it’s time for the policy to change. Parents there want to gain a voice in their public school and change unfair and discriminatory rules rather than be forced out as their children have been there since pre-K.
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Perhaps they were afraid the kids were braiding encoded test answers in their hair or sending messages to classmates, both of which would seem to be of legitimate concern.
There is a whole language associated with braids. It’s how we won won WWII, you know, with the help of Navajo braids.
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Encoded messages are also what Francis Scott Key was referring to in the Star Spangled Banner, by the way: “o’er the land of the free and the home of the braid”
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🙂
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