Please read the NAACP report on charter schools.
Ever since it was released, charter supporters have complained bitterly about the report and accused the NAACP of being paid off by the unions.
This is ridiculous. It is a sound and sober report.
Consider its recommendations.
1. There should be more equitable and adequate funding for schools serving children of color. The school finance system is extremely unfair and inequitable over states, districts, and schools. School funding in 36 states has not returned to its pre-2008 levels, when budgets were slashed. Federal funds in real dollar amounts have declined for Title I and special education over the same period.
Do charter supporters disagree?
2. School finance reform is needed to ensure that dollars go where the needs are greatest.
Do charter supporters disagree?
3. Invest in low-performing schools and in schools that have a significant opportunity to close achievement gaps. “Students learn in safe, supportive, and challenging learning environments under the tutelage of well-prepared caring adults.” Authorities must invest in incentives to attract and retain “fully qualified educators”; they must invest in creating instructional quality that provides a stimulating and challenging learning environment; they must invest in wraparound services that meet the need of children, including early childhood education, health and mental services, extended learning time, and social supports.
Do charter supports disagree? What would they object to? Maybe they would reject the idea that teachers should be “fully qualified,” since that might be a slap at Teach for America’s teachers, who are never fully qualified when they begin teaching.
4. Mandate a rigorous authorizing and renewal process. States with the fewest authorizers have the best charters. Only local school districts should be allowed to authorize charters, based on their needs.
This would be a problem for many charters, because they like it when there are many authorizers, and they can go shopping to find one that will give them an okay. They hate being overseen by local districts, because they see themselves as competitors to public schools, not collaborators. But that is part of what makes charters obnoxious.
5. Eliminate for-profit charter schools and for-profit charter management companies that control nonprofit charters. Not a dollar of federal, state or local money should go to for-profit charters. The report notes that the widespread reports of misconduct of for-profit charters and their for-profit managers is reason enough to forbid them. As for-profits, they have an “inherent conflict of interest,” and may well put the interest of their investors over those of students.
Do charter supporters disagree? Obviously, this is a sticking point for many charter supporters, including Betsy DeVos, who welcomes for-profit charters. More than 80% of the charters in her home state of Michigan operate for profit, and they get poor results. That doesn’t bother her at all. It bothers the NAACP.
Now, I ask you, what part of these five recommendations suggests that the NAACP is wrong? That it was doing the bidding of teachers’ unions? Is it so objectionable to charter advocates to propose that children should be taught by fully qualified educators? Are they prepared to fight for teachers who are not fully qualified?
Later in the report, on page 26, is an expanded discussion of the recommendations, including a recommendation that charters hire only certified teachers and that charters abide by common standards for reporting on disciplinary practices and admitting and retaining students.
I commend the NAACP for its common sense proposals to reform the charter sector.
Are charter advocates prepared to go to the mat to defend for-profit operations?
What part of this report and its recommendations has lit a fire of outrage in charter land?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
By and large, charter schools morphed from educationally-sound experiments to corporate raiding exploitations of children, parents, and public funds. The great majority are now simply private schools that exist solely to siphon off scarce public resources.
I read the NAACP’s report and found it to be well thought out, and the concerns legitimate. The billionaire and hedge fund privateers are arrogant so they reject any resistance to their forced march to gain access to public money. The NAACP is looking out for the interests of minority children so their conclusions are based on what they feel is best for them. Their report is not a political document, and it was not written to please the wealthy interests behind privatization. I hope the NAACP continues to stand its ground against the bully privateers, and I hope they unite with other groups that oppose privatization for the same reasons that the NAACP does. A united front would heighten the resistance to failed privatization that the wealthy are determined to impose on other people’s children. The goal of privatization is not improved education. It is a massive movement of wealth, self-determination, and democracy from the working class to the already wealthy like Trump and DeVos.
The NAACP’s conclusion is the same one readers of this blog support. Charters are no replacement for a well funded, well resourced public system. We know this and so does the NAACP. We must resist.
Very good. Any chance you can send this concise but compelling post to Bernie, Cuomo, Rahm, Malloy, Booker, Warren, etc., as well as the tech geniuses like Zuckerberg, Gates, etc., who fund privatization?
There can be no criticism of charter schools. None. Even mild criticism indicates one of two things – labor union membership or hating children. Probably both.
The supposedly “good” non-profit charters claim that it isn’t the ideas in the NAACP’s proposal, it is the NAACP wanting a moratorium because they should be patient and wait until things get better. The supposedly “good” non-profit charters remind me of Ivanka Trump pretending that she believes in gay rights or the environment while doing everything to push Trump’s far right agenda and legitimize him. Like Ivanka, the supposedly “good” non-profit charters claim they don’t support the far right agenda and the fact that it also benefits their own pocketbooks so much has nothing to do with their giving lip service to the NAACP’s concerns while helping to make sure that none of them come to pass.
Thus the temper tantrum those charters threw when the NAACP finally stopped believing that their “expressions of concern” were going to change anything.
The NAACP heard testimony from a dad whose son, along with a few others, were made to disappear from a Success Academy Charter School in the first week where they would not show up in any attrition numbers.
The non-profit charters’ answer to them was “the SUNY Charter Institute’s oversight is as good as it gets and they say this is fine”.
No wonder the NAACP wants the school board to authorize charters, when it is clear the even the “best” charter authorizers are failing and complicit.
And no wonder the charter movement is attacking the NAACP as if the things it is asking for are things that only a corrupt organization would want. It demonstrates just how far the entire charter movement has fallen – where practicing ethical and moral behavior is not nearly as lucrative as pushing a right wing agenda.
“the SUNY Charter Institute’s oversight is as good as it gets and they say this is fine”.
Most here understand that “the SUNY Charter Institute’s oversight is as LUDICROUS and RISIBLE as it gets and they say this ISN’T fine”.
Duane,
You are correct about the SUNY Charter Institute. The scary thing about the reform movement — especially the non-profit charters who claim they agree with the NAACP’s desire for oversight — hold SUNY up as one of the best authorizers in the country! They can do no wrong!
No wonder the NAACP wants a moratorium when the reformers are attacking them for not believing that SUNY’s oversight is perfect and they should shut up and be satisfied with that.
Ironically, the NAACP’s critics make the case for why the moratorium is so necessary.
The NAACP report is a travesty. The organization does not even attempt to conceal the fact that they are an ancillary of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel. See for yourself, at
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450092/naacp-charter-schools-report-makes-weak-argument-against-them?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Week%20in%20Review%202017-08-06&utm_term=VDHM
So, let’s see. Who would I trust more to comment on what folks of color need? The oldest and most respected social justice organization in the USA when it comes to PoC? Of the lily-white National Review?
In Atlanta AFSCME, by its leadership, is a willing, self-serving player in privatizing public schools.
Some, (NOT ALL) labor unions are in support of school choice. Even the late Cesar Chavez, supported school choice. see
https://www.redefinedonline.org/2016/04/labor-unions-for-school-choice/
Diane: “2. School finance reform is needed to ensure that dollars go where the needs are greatest. Do charter supporters disagree?”
Eh??? As one example, Massachusetts is commonly praised as among the most advanced states in respect to school finance reform, and many of the key reforms were implemented by strong charter school advocates alongside sensible provisions for creating and managing an uncommonly strong public charter school sector.
Diane: “States with the fewest authorizers have the best charters. Only local school districts should be allowed to authorize charters, based on their needs.”
It is the fact that the second sentence does not follow logically from the first that seems to be drawing criticism.
Here in Massachusetts we have one charter school authorizer with state-wide jurisdiction. And perhaps as strong a set of charter schools as any state. That certainly supports the notion that “States with the fewest authorizers have the best charters”. What shred of evidence does the report provide that it would be preferable to have 404 potential authorizers? One for each of our school districts? Seriously? Why is that in there?
What the NAACP is suggesting is that there are no SEPARATE “authorizers”. You no doubt are under the misapprehension that the NAACP wants each school district to have a separate entity to authorize charters but their report said no such thing.
This report says the local school districts would authorize charters themselves if there was a need. That insures that the charter is not working at cross-purposes with the school district. Obviously, it would also mean that no one would get rich running a charter since if a charter was proving it could educate students for less money, the savings could go to teaching the students they couldn’t teach for less money! It’s actually a win-win for everyone (except greedy charter CEOs and right wing billionaires who don’t like any public goods – whether it is medicare or public education.)
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.