Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charters: the News Across the Nation

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charters: the News Across the Nation:

Charters: the News Across the Nation

The news is not good.  In fact, there's quite a lot of rumbling across charterland.   Get a cup of coffee because there are many stories to read.  These stories create quite the crazy quilt of the landscape of charter schools.

Let's start with the NAACP and the resolution brought forth at their national convention recently.  When you see the NAACP saying things like:

- charters are rapidly growing and "targeting" communities of color
- some charters are privately managed and do not include parents in any decision-making nor have parents on their boards
- that charters are contributing to the re-segregation of American schools
- that some charters use punitive discipline
- that co-locations in some districts with a traditional public school are leading to clashes and fights over turf and resources
- and that the NAACP, along with the Journey for Justice Alliance, a coalition of 38 groups of color in 23 states, are calling for a moratorium on federal funds for charter schools, "many of which have closed or failed the students drawn to them on the illusive promise of quality"

You must know that there is alarm out there for communities of color to seem to believe they may have been sold a bill of goods, a least for privately managed charter schools.  The outcome of this vote could ripple throughout the country.  (And kudos to the King County NAACP for coming out way sooner on this issue.)

The next ripple could come from a vote on the ballot in Massachusettswhich The 74 calls:

"..a relatively simple question that will appear on the Seattle Schools Community Forum: Charters: the News Across the Nation: