Why the NAACP is Suing New York
In Friday’s Washington Post NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous explains why the NAACP, the UFT and others are suing the DOE.
This lawsuit was filed for the most common reasons we have sued boards of education across the decades: Students are being grossly mistreated, their parents are being deeply disrespected and the entire community stands to suffer.
There are two issues we are particularly concerned about.
First, the city has located charter schools under the same roofs as traditional public schools in a way that is unfair and unjust. Their poor handling has led to many complaints from our members and their neighbors, including:
- Students in the traditional public school must now eat lunch at 10 a.m. so that charter school students can enjoy lunch at noon.
- The “regular school’s children” had library access for a little over four hours so that the “new charter school’s kids” could have access for almost seven.
- “Traditional school students” were moved to a basement, where they were next to the boiler room, to make room for their charter school peers, and teachers of the regular students