Let’s All Unite Behind the NAACP’s Call for a Charter School Moratorium
The good news is that the NAACP is calling for a moratorium on the expansion of charter schools. The bad news is that the call is not universally seen for what it is - a balanced effort to deescalate the education civil war which is disproportionately hurting poor children of color.
In a rational and humane era of school improvement, there wouldn’t be complete agreement on the NAACP position, but advocates for choice would recognize the need to slow the growth of charters. They might be offering substitute wording for the resolution, and working with representatives of traditional public schools, teachers, and unions to craft an agreement on ways to minimize the inherent harm done by charters, while building on the good that some charters have provided.
In a rational and humane era of school improvement, there wouldn’t be complete agreement on the NAACP position, but advocates for choice would recognize the need to slow the growth of charters. They might be offering substitute wording for the resolution, and working with representatives of traditional public schools, teachers, and unions to craft an agreement on ways to minimize the inherent harm done by charters, while building on the good that some charters have provided.
The NAACP voted for the following:
We are calling for a moratorium on the expansion of the charter schools at least until such time as:
(1) Charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools
(2) Public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system
(3) Charter schools cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate and
(4) Cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.
(2) Public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system
(3) Charter schools cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate and
(4) Cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.
Non-educators might be perplexed about the anger that this resolution generated. As Mercedes Schneider notes, the Business Insider compares the “charter school-CMO relationship to the subprime mortgage crisis ‘bubble.’” Moreover, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) “found that 22 of the 33 charter schools in our review had 36 examples of internal control weaknesses related to the charter schools’ relationships with their CMOs (concerning conflicts of interest, related-party Let's All Unite Behind the NAACP's Call for a Charter School Moratorium | Huffington Post: