Everything Wrong with Charter Schools on Display in New Orleans

New Orleans is the nation’s largest and most complete experiment in charter schools. After Hurricane Katrina, the State of Louisiana took control of public schools in New Orleans and launched a nearly complete transformation of a public school system into a system of charter schools.

The birthing of the charter system occurred in 2005 when the community was displaced by Katrina. Control of the public school system was taken away from a board which had an elected majority of African American officials and was given to the white majority board of the state system

The first casualty of the abrupt change was the termination of the South’s largest local union and the firing of over 7000 most African American female teachers. Attorney Willie Zanders told the NAACP of the years of struggle for those teachers which, though initially successful, ended in bitter defeat years later. The city’s veteran black educators were replaced by younger, less qualified white teachers from Teach for America and Teach NOLA.

The change to charters reduced the percentage of black teachers from 74 percent to 51 percent. There are now fewer experienced teachers, fewer accredited teachers, fewer local teachers, and more teachers who are likely to leave than before Katrina. Five charter schools have tried to unionize with United Teachers of New Orleans. Though two schools cooperated, two other charters have said they are exempt from NLRB – a position rejected by the National Labor Relations Board. One of those charter schools shut out the public in 2016 by meeting privately and online over how to respond to unionization efforts.

New Orleans now spends more on administration and less on teaching than they did before Katrina. One charter school executive, who oversees one K-12 school on three campuses, was paid $262,000 in 2014. At least 62 other charter execs made more than $100,000. This compares with the salary of $138,915 for the superintendent of all the public schools in Baton Rouge.

Read more: Everything Wrong with Charter Schools on Display in New Orleans

Black fathers, you are important to your child's education.

By George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com

To my fellow black fathers out there you are vital to your child/children's education in ways you may not even know. You can help lay the foundation for your child/children to build on and it's a role that we must take seriously. Watch more on this very important topic below.

In the black community, a division over charter schools

With the election of Donald Trump, a big proponent of school choice, and his like-minded pick for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, the topic of charter schools is likely to attract more attention. But among African-American parents and the NAACP, the debate over school choice and its impact on public education is already a heated one. From Memphis, Education Week’s Lisa Stark reports.

NAACP APPROVES RESOLUTION ON A MORATORIUM ON CHARTER SCHOOLS

Members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Board of Directors ratified a resolution Saturday adopted by delegates at its 2016 107th National Convention calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion and for the strengthening of oversight in governance and practice.

“The NAACP has been in the forefront of the struggle for and a staunch advocate of free, high-quality, fully and equitably-funded public education for all children,” said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the National NAACP Board of Directors. “We are dedicated to eliminating the severe racial inequities that continue to plague the education system.”

The National Board’s decision to ratify this resolution reaffirms prior resolutions regarding charter schools and the importance of public education, and is one of 47 resolutions adopted today by the Board of Directors. The National Board’s decision to ratify supports its 2014 Resolution, ‘School Privatization Threat to Public Education’, in which the NAACP opposes privatization of public schools and public subsidizing or funding of for-profit or charter schools. Additionally, in 1998 the Association adopted a resolution which unequivocally opposed the establishment and granting of charter schools which are not subject to the same accountability and standardization of qualifications/certification of teachers as public schools and divert already-limited funds from public schools.

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.

Historically the NAACP has been in strong support of public education and has denounced movements toward privatization that divert public funds to support non-public school choices.

“We are moving forward to require that charter schools receive the same level of oversight, civil rights protections and provide the same level of transparency, and we require the same of traditional public schools,” Chairman Brock said. “Our decision today is driven by a long held principle and policy of the NAACP that high quality, free, public education should be afforded to all children.”

While we have reservations about charter schools, we recognize that many children attend traditional public schools that are inadequately and inequitably equipped to prepare them for the innovative and competitive environment they will face as adults. Underfunded and under-supported, these traditional public schools have much work to do to transform curriculum, prepare teachers, and give students the resources they need to have thriving careers in a technologically advanced society that is changing every year. There is no time to wait. Our children immediately deserve the best education we can provide.

“Our ultimate goal is that all children receive a quality public education that prepares them to be a contributing and productive citizen,” said Adora Obi Nweze, Chair of the National NAACP Education Committee, President of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP and a former educator whose committee guides educational policy for the Association.

“The NAACP’s resolution is not inspired by ideological opposition to charter schools but by our historical support of public schools – as well as today’s data and the present experience of NAACP branches in nearly every school district in the nation,” said Cornell William Brooks, President and CEO of the NAACP. “Our NAACP members, who as citizen advocates, not professional lobbyists, are those who attend school board meetings, engage with state legislatures and support both parents and teachers.”

“The vote taken by the NAACP is a declaratory statement by this Association that the proliferation of charter schools should be halted as we address the concerns raised in our resolution,” said Chairman Brock.

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NAACP TO VOTE ON CONTROVERSIAL CHARTER MORATORIUM

The NAACP is set to vote this weekend on a controversial resolution calling for a halt to charter school expansion. It’s not exactly a new stance for the NAACP, which has passed numerous resolutions critical of charters since as far back as the late 1990s. But charter schools have seen rapid growth in recent years and are under increased scrutiny, so this vote is attracting a lot more attention — and resistance — than those in the past.

Read more: NAACP TO VOTE ON CONTROVERSIAL CHARTER MORATORIUM

Sean Combs launches Charter School In Harlem

Combs announced Monday that the Capital Preparatory Harlem Charter School will open in the fall. Watch the story below.

Are charter schools adding to desegregation in the United States?

As the nation marks the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision Saturday, single-race classrooms are getting a fresh look from education researchers alarmed by what they see as a second segregated public school system piling atop the first.

About 5% of U.S. students attend charter schools, which began as a late 20th-century attempt by educators and entrepreneurs to create what they believed to be higher quality, more innovative alternatives to public schools.

With the Obama administration's blessing and start-up money behind it, charters are poised for further exponential growth. The problem with that, critics say, is that charter systems pay more attention to student achievement than to racial diversity when both are important.

Charter advocates counter by listing a number of limitations on their recruitment, including the facts that they typically draw from already-segregated traditional schools and that school choice means just that — parents don't have to pick them. At the same time, there's a new movement to open charter schools that emphasize both achievement and racial balance.

This week, ahead of Saturday's anniversary of the high court's 1954 ruling that forced integration of public schools, renowned UCLA desegregation researcher Gary Orfield released a report on the state of racial balance in U.S. schools. The segregation of Latino students has soared, the report finds, with black and Latino students most likely to share poor schools and white and Asian children more likely to share middle-class ones.

That's the fallout from the 2007 Supreme Court decision ending the practice of assigning students to schools based on race, and federal courts dropping oversight of school districts' desegregation plans, the report says. But Orfield insists charter schools should seek diversity — and states should enact laws that make them do so — by recruiting by socioeconomic status that often follows racial patterns. It's important because a half-century of research shows segregation robs children of opportunity, he says.

Read more: Charters add layer to ongoing Brown v. Board debate