It might have been lost in all the hubbub of the last week during this awful campaign for United States president. As many things would. It's hard to concentrate on the road when there's a car crash in the other lane. And one that continues to crash every few minutes. Talk about distracted driving.
This time the news came from the NAACP, the oldest civil rights outfit in the country. And one that might need to retire after this latest shameful act.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. The organization, which has long promoted the well-being of black folks across the land and was on the right side of history for most of its own history, has proven that it has become nothing more than a political hack of an organization. Even some who have supported it in the past admit as much. Call it a crying embarrassment. And the crying might be done by a lot of black families.
A few days back in Cincinnati, the NAACP ratified a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter schools. It said it wanted to put a stop to new charters until (1) charters are held to same transparency and accountability as public schools, (2) public funds are no longer diverted to charters, (3) charters stop expelling students that public schools must educate, and (4) stop segregating higher performing kids from others.
Where to start? This resolution must've been written by the teachers' unions.
First, accountability? You mean that an entire charter school can be shut down if it fails to live up to its charter? Unlike the "accountability" at traditional schools, which have no charter to guide them.
Public funds "diverted" to charters? We repeat this so often, but maybe somebody should put it in embroidery: Charter schools are public schools. No money is being diverted away from public schools.
Segregating the "good" students? Not around here, where charters pick kids by blind lottery. And thousands of black families are on waiting lists to get their kids in.
When word got around that the NAACP had such a resolution before its membership, 160 African American educators sent the organization a letter, accusing the NAACP of ignoring the wishes of black parents and putting up yet another obstacle to the future of black kids. Or, as it was put best by Shavar Jeffries, president of Democrats for Education Reform:
"W.E.B. DuBois is rolling in his grave. The NAACP, a proud organization with a historic legacy of expanding opportunity for communities of color, now itself stands in the schoolhouse door, seeking to deny life-changing educational opportunities to millions of children whose parents and families desperately seek alternatives to schools that have failed them for too long. Public charter schools throughout the country are creating new pathways to college and career that were previously unavailable. The idea that the NAACP would support a blanket moratorium that would apply across-the-board to all charters, including schools like Urban Prep that send 100 percent of its graduates to college, is a tragic contradiction of what the NAACP has traditionally stood for."
In the dispatches we've seen from Cincinnati this week, nobody has put it better.
For its part, the NAACP issued a statement. And you just knew it would issue a statement. In it, the chairman of the board of directors noted that the NAACP has been in the forefront of the struggle for high-quality and equitable education for all children.
We note the "has."
The only bright spot is that the NAACP doesn't shape education policy. But an organization with its history carries a lot of weight when it issues such an opinion. What the nation witnessed last week--a proud civil rights organization turning against the interests of poorer black folks, for political reasons only--is a crying shame.
And mostly it will be poorer black families doing the crying.
Editorial on 10/21/2016