First, some reactions from parents of color who attended last weekend’s NJ Parent Summit. During a session called “How Race and Class Impact Student Learning and Development,” the packed room burst into cheers when Derrell Bradford branded the NAACP’s anti-charter school agenda “bullshit” and Ron Rice noted that NAACP board members “better be ready to send their kids to the schools that would be left without charters.”
An audience member scoffed,”you know that the NAACP board members don’t live in Newark and Camden.”
Are you listening, NAACP? Here's more:
Sharif El-Mekki, Philadelphia charter school principal:
Today’s version of the NAACP isn’t woke. It’s more woozy than anything. The leaders of the NAACP have lost their way and are stumbling, bumbling caricatures of their former selves...
What they should be demanding is a moratorium for failing schools in every zip code. That is what would be a worthy cause of a civil rights organization. This most recent resolution was purchased by national teacher unions and sells out Black families.
Jacqueline Cooper, president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options
The fact that the NAACP wants a national moratorium on charter schools, many of which offer a high-quality education to low-income and working-class Black children, is inexplicable."The resolution is ill-conceived and based on lies and distortions about the work of charter schools.
Raymond Ankrum, charter school principal and charter parent at Urban School Talk
I’ve read previous articles that cast the NAACP as out of touch with the Black Community. I’ve also read past articles stating that the NAACP was and has been mortgaged by theteacher’s union. I recently watched a conversation on TV1 in which a fellow school leader, Dr. Steve Perry, Shavar Jeffries, & TV One News host Roland Martin spoke candidly on how the NAACP got it wrong with calling for this resolution for a moratorium on charter schools.
Shavar Jeffries from Democrats for Education Reform:
This moratorium would contravene the NAACP’s historic legacy as a champion for expanding opportunity for families of color. In communities of color throughout our country, public charter schools are providing pathways to college and careers that previously were not available. Indiscriminately targeting all charter schools, even the many great public charter schools that are offering students a bridge to college, while ignoring underperforming district schools, undermines the quality and integrity of our entire education system. We should be fixing what’s broken and expanding what works, not pre-empting the choices of parents of color about the best schools appropriate for meeting the particular needs of their children.