charter schools
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Black People Support Vouchers, Black Leaders Don’t. Who’s Right?
At times, black people, like any group battered and oppressed by the state, may celebrate any perception of forward motion. Folks scour social media pages to see who has what appointment, what political power is being amassed and what black person has been newly elected. Although I strongly believe in the need for more representation…
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The National Interest: What’s Really Wrong With White Teachers? They’re Racist
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. In recent years, an outburst of national studies (pdf) and exposés have shown that black teachers produce better academic and behavioral outcomes for black students compared with their white…
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The NAACP Will Learn the Pain Associated With Charter Schools
“Before the NAACP came to New Orleans, we never had the opportunity to share,” Kim Ford, communications chair for the New Orleans branch of the NAACP, said exclusively to The Root. Ford helped organize the national organization’s sixth hearing on quality education, which took place in the Crescent City on April 6. “We are a…
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Report: How Charter Schools Are Used to Hide Dropouts and Game the Educational System
Olympia (Fla.) High School was ranked among the nation’s top 1,000 schools by U.S. News and World Report last year. It offers more than two dozen Advanced Placement courses, a great many after-school clubs and an assortment of sports, everything from bowling to water polo. Yet a recent report says that Olympia’s success as a…
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Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Shouldn’t Be Anywhere Near Our Children
Betsy DeVos is a longtime billionaire philanthropist, a champion of allowing religion in schools and a charter school board member who was picked by President-elect Donald Trump as his nominee for secretary of education. She has never worked in a school or been in the field of education before, and while she has considerable money…
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Betsy DeVos, Religion and Taxpayer Dollars for Private School Education
President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos was his choice for education secretary. DeVos, a conservative activist, has no professional experience in schools, and she is known politically for pushing private school voucher programs—which, as the Washington Post describes, is a controversial position within public school circles. DeVos has spent millions of…
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Black Children Deserve the Stability That Neighborhood Schools Offer
School closure is a tactic we don’t have to take. Under the new national education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, states have been freed to employ strategies they deem fit just as long as they act on the bottom 5 percent. When we’re talking about improving urban districts, though, we always seem to land…
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The NAACP Charter School Ban: Good Intentions Take a Bad Turn
Based on its century-long mission and in-the-trenches fight for social justice, it certainly goes without saying that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is an organization built on good intentions and good causes. It’s one of the few reliably steady organizations African Americans can depend on when freedoms are compromised by generations…
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Black Folk Hate White Tears and Blatant Racism More Than Charter Schools
To the chagrin of charter advocates, on Friday the national board of the NAACP ratified an earlier resolution (pdf) that called for a moratorium on charter schools. Given the ample sources of opposition to charter schools, as well as mixed results, we should only be surprised that it’s taken this long for a major black civil…