Don’t believe the right wingers who claim that charter schools are supported by Black and Brown people.
Not only did the NAACP, the nation’s most venerable civil rights group, call for a moratorium on charter schools but so did Black Lives Matter.
The Journey for Justice Alliance is a true grassroots civil rights organization. It led demonstrations across the nation today. One of its demands: No more public funds for charter schools, which are a tool of gentrification. J4J knows what matters most: full funding of Title 1 and special education, not privatization and charter schools.
May 22 PRESS RELEASE FOR NATIONAL ACTIONS:
We Choose Equity So Fund Our Future! National Day of Action
May 22, 2019
Thousands rally nationwide for education justice on May 22, 2019!
On May 22nd coalitions from 20 cities are uniting forces to hold 11 powerful actions to demand equity and end racial injustice in schools nationwide. As we commemorate the landmark Brown V. Board Decision we will renew our call for an end to the egregious disparities in resources allocated schools serving Black and Brown youth. We will also demand for full funding of Title I and IDEA. The Journey for Justice Alliance will also hold Equity Bus Tours and Forums throughout the country. Many city and statewide coalitions are organizing large rallies with bold actions connected to their local demands for fair funding, sustainable community schools and progressive revenue. Our May 22nd Day of Action will galvanize our communities as we create the momentum to make education a pivotal issue in the 2020 Presidential elections.
May 22nd Calendar
WASHINGTON DC Coalitions: Journey for Justice Alliance (New York, Baltimore, Newark, Camden, Patterson and Pittsburgh), the Alliance for Educational Justice, and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools
• Actions:
1) Rally at Supreme Court with parents and youth from 6 cities, President Randi Weingarten (AFT) and Sen Chris Van Hollen to commemorate Brown V. Board and a renewed demand for equity
2) Equity Bus Tour in DC’s Wards 7 and 8 to highlight resource disparities in local schools
3) Press Conference at Hart Middle School with US Rep. Susie Lee, Liz Davis and President of the Washington Teachers Union
BIRMINGHAM. Coalition/Organization Name: Citizens for Better Schools and Sustainable Communities
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board
CINCINNATI. Coalition: Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition
• Action: Protest/Rally in front of campus of new charter school “Regeneration Schools” set to open in August, 2019 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Demand: No more public $$ to charter schools. Demand for equity in school funding, including local campaign demands for tax abatement policy changes. ( The proposed charter school is pushed by local deep pockets organized as the Cincinnati Accelerator started as an offshoot of MindTrust in Indianapolis. These people talk about high-quality seats–a dead give away thet the are using test scores and the absurd Ohio report card as a reason to push for a charter. Key players here are a retired banker and the family that owns CINTAS.)
CHICAGO. Coalition: The Grassroots Education Movement and Chicago Teachers Union
• Action: Fair Contract Rally–Keep the Promise: Equity & Funding for our Schools, Students & Community Thompson Center (110 W. Randolph, downtown Chicago)
• Demand: Call for new mayor to agree to a fair contract that improves educator pay & benefits, reduces class sizes and increasing critical staffing needs (ELL and SPED teachers, paraprofessionals, librarians, nurses, counselors, social workers, restorative justice coordinators) Demands include expanding sustainable community schools and increasing affordable housing.
DENVER. Coalition/Organization Name: Breaking Our Chains
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board
DALLAS. Coalition/Organization Name: Texas Organizing Project
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board
BATON ROUGE. Coalition/Organization Name: Step Up Louisiana, LAE
• Action: Rally and Press Conference regarding harm done by charters and their lack of accountability (due to ‘autonomy’ given by state laws)
• Demands: Stop the proliferation of charters and a fair plan to address budget deficit
HOUSTON. Coalition/Organization Name: Save Our School Houston and Texas Organizing Project
• Action: Rally and Protest
• Demand: End Punitive dress code policies that police parents of color and prevent their engagement in school activities
JACKSON. Coalition/Organization Name: IDEA and One Voice
• Action: Forum on School to Prison Pipeline and Education Equity
• Demand: End Punitive tactics to police our children
PEORIA. Coalition: Peoria’s People Project
• Action: Organizing for Racial Equity in Education Training co-sponsored by the NAACP
• Demand: Full funding of Title I and IDEA
SACRAMENTO + (Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and Sacramento) Coalitions: Oakland Public Education Network, Reclaim Our Schools LA, Close the Gap, Oakland Education Association, UTLA, United Educators of San Francisco, San Francisco Families Union, Coleman Advocates, California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour & Coalitions will unite at a rally of 1,000 people in Sacramento (Rotunda of State Capitol)
• Demand: The statewide coalition is calling on legislators to support legislation for fair school funding and bills aimed at ending school privatization. They are also demanding full funding of Title I and IDEA and the fulfillment of the mandate to honor Brown V. Board decision.
How was the news coverage? I was wrapped up in Trump’s latest antics.
As did that dump…LOL!
So “justice” has had a busy day all around. Yay. Let’s have more.
Great news–really counteracts the horrible article in today’s (5/22/19, Wed.) Wall Street Journal: “Sanders Chooses Teachers Unions Over Black Voters” by Jason L. Riley
(column: Upward Mobility). If someone can provide the link, please do.
“Mr. Sanders will find support for his attack on school choice from civil-rights groups who take money from teachers’ unions, but he shouldn’t mistake NAACP support for black support. Many black families are convinced that school choice is the solution, not the problem. Which is why there are tens of thousands of minority children languishing on charter school wait lists in cities across the country.
Repeated studies have demonstrated that charter schools are closing gaps in racial achievement. Whether the measure is test scores, graduation rates or college readiness, charter students consistently outperform their peers in traditional public schools…Low income charter school graduates complete college at two to four times the national average for their peers.”
**REALLY?!” One wonders from which sources Mr. Riley gleans his information, such as in “Repeated studies…”
Balderdash!
Could someone write the WSJ a letter with a factual disputation of his assertions?
Wait! What?
1. What research studies?
2. Where’s the media?*
3. Higher graduation rates… HOW MANY DO THEY KICK OUT and COUNSEL OUT and “wink nod, ‘this may not be the best place for your child'” and “the Never Apply families because they know the schools can’t accommodate students with disabilities…
*Media – where are you?!
Everyone reading this blog should be sending NPE’s studies and website and the NEA just released study to their local papers – WSJ, NYT… fine.. but the local of local papers… the local of local “watch dog tv ‘gotcha’ reporters” – – urban, rural, suburban – parents don’t know what they don’t know and the charter scandals and corporate ties need to be out there
so many news outlets have been bought up and are now controlled by big money interests — interests which will no longer allow this type of information to spread: as you mention, “parents don’t know what they don’t know…”
I think the “Wall St. Journal” is basing its opinion on a handful of black women in NYC whose children were fortunate to land in one of the selective charters backed by wealthy benefactors. Also, New York does not allow so-called for profit charters so they do not see the worst of the obvious profiteering and fraud in charter schools.
Nonprofit charters have figured out ways to make money while calling themselves nonprofit. Like huge executive salaries. Lease and rental fees.
Jason’s a propagandist. He works for Fox News’ Murdoch.
Undoubtedly. After all, he writes a regular for the likes of the WSJ, doesn’t he?
I meant to type REALLY?!
(Thanks, Mate!)
We keep hearing that black women support charter schools. Perhaps it is true for a few families that are fortunate enough to have children “selected” for a decent charter school. Perhaps it is true if these families did not get displaced by all the gentrification entangled with privatization. Overall, the perception that black women support charters is a myth perpetuated by the media.
The protests that the Journey for Justice sponsored are the fight we should have had a long time ago when it was clear that urban schools were being short changed. This funding disparity became a fact of life in urban schools that was tolerated too long. Instead, this inequity in the hands of slick spin doctors became the “civil rights issue of our time.” The big “solution” was the false flag of privatization. The past twenty years we have learned by privatization creates far more problems than it solves. We keep going further away from any meaningful action that addresses inequity.
Cincinnati- When is the Ohio State Board of Education going to stop charter schools from lying about being public? Fordham mocks democracy and deceives citizens – it allows its sponsored schools to perpetuate the lie.
Sadly – not until a coalition of public school districts and state associations raise the issue. Hopefully some have but… the same “sponsors” for some of these organizations are the big money behind the charter beneficiaries
This is the lie:
It is not CHARTERS and PRIVATIZATION that parents in African-American communities support.
They want GOOD SCHOOLS.
The despicable billionaires and their toadying servants in the education reform industry are offering them two choices: 1. A well-funded charter school that can pick and choose to teach the least expensive to educate students and throw the rest back into the public school system. 2. an underfunded public school that is falling apart that has to take all the students the charter won’t teach and has large class sizes (thanks Eva Moskowitz for INSISTING that all poor kids should be taught in large class sizes) and to add insult to injury, must pay for the bus service and facilities and all sorts of programs not just for themselves, but for charter school students so that the charter schools don’t have to use any of their money for those things knowing that the public school students will be charged out of their budgets for them.
What a “choice”. And African-American parents are realizing that the racist white charter CEOs who keep telling the country about how violent so many of their 5 year old children are don’t really care about their children’s education at all. So even though the white charter CEOs and their billionaire supporters are working so hard to make sure their “choice” of a public school is starved of funding, those parents are starting to stand up against the racism those white charter CEOs are quietly promoting — that their children NEED white saviors who just happen to get really rich by choosing some of their kids to teach and throwing the rest back into the public school system that they spend so much money and effort to destroy.
I had a principal ask me what ESL parents want for their children. I told her they wanted a good, safe school that provides them with a quality education and opportunity for a better future.
I cannot blame a parent for choosing a selective charter with small classes back by lot of hedge fund money when the public school classes contain thirty-five students and not enough books for the entire class. That is the rigged “market competition” in a lot of cities.
I highly recommend that y’all read WSJ (not actually but it, but online or at your local library)–today’s edition had three pages RE: education–“The College Admissions Mess by Daniel Heninger (not a totally one-sided view–explains the College Board’s “Adversity Index”)–well worth reading. Then, page 18 has 4 letters RE: a May 17th editorial, “The New & Unimproved SAT” (which should also be read) AND a long letter from Derrick Johnson, NAACP President, “Charter Schools Underserve Students of Color,” in response to the WSJ‘s May 7th editorial, “An NAACP Revolt on Charters,” calling out misrepresentation “of the findings of the LA School Report & policy decisions agreed upon during our annual convention in 2016.”
Finally, Page 19 has the article, “The ‘Underpaid’ Teachers’ Myth,” by Jason Richwine (a “public-policy analyst based in Washington”) & Andrew G. Biggs (“a resident scholar” from–guess where?–The American Enterprise Institute).
(Disclosure: my husband subscribes to the paper {as he’s in business}, but he always takes time to find the ed. articles for me {sweet!}.)
As always, “keep your friends close but your enemies closer!”
(Although they do, as aforementioned, have opposing {ones we agree with}viewpoints in the paper, as well, esp. in letters to the ed.)
Oh, & if someone here can link articles, please do. I never do it correctly…
I don’t know who the right wingers are specifically or what they’re saying, but the polling I’ve seen is mixed and varies by state, with some polls showing “Black and Brown” (which I assume just means Black and Latino) respondents favoring charter schools and/or charter expansion, some opposing, others showing them opposing, and others ambiguous. Separately, the NAACP and Black Lives Matters are not elected bodies, and I don’t think one can assume that any particular position those organizations takes is representative of what “Black and Brown” people believe generally.