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Saturday, July 2, 2011

Fighting charters: It's about equality - NYPOST.com

Fighting charters: It's about equality - NYPOST.com

THE ISSUE: The NAACP and UFT's fight against co-locating traditional public schools and charters.

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Once again, The Post blames the victims rather than the perpetrators ("UFT-NAACP Child Abuse," Editorial, June 24).

It is not the UFT and NAACP that are guilty of child abuse but the Department of Education, which has placed more and more of the neediest students -- over-age, undercredited, English language learners and special-education students -- in a few chosen schools.

The DOE then cuts funding to these same schools, calls the schools failures and tries to close them, illegally.

Charter kids sharing space in a Bronx school.
ROBERT KALFUS
Charter kids sharing space in a Bronx school.

David Pecoraro

UFT Chapter Leader

Beach Channel High School

Rockaway Park

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If your open-minded readers could make an in-depth visit to most buildings where charter and traditional district schools are co-located, they would discover glaring differences in the resources provided to them.

Charter schools are the pet projects of people who masquerade as education reformers with the welfare of children at heart. But what really drives them is vicious and mindless anti-unionism.

The UFT and NAACP are driven by one overarching agenda: respect for the law and responsible devotion to all children, with no exceptions.

Ron Isaac

Fresh Meadows

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To compare the leading civil-rights organization and local union to child abusers is disgusting. The two organizations are trying to prevent a "separate but equal" situation.



Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/letters/fighting_charters_it_about_equality_n84Pmur6xE2C1dr8J9j0SN#ixzz1Qy3mHZe5