
NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools - juanplusjuan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/08/07/naacp-members-call-for-ban-on-privately-managed-charter-schools/
======
rayiner
Lesser of two evils. Black communities in the U.S. are in a tough situation:
one party is openly hostile and racist, and the other props up teachers'
unions and failing school districts (not to mention "think of the children"
tough-on-crime policies) that do tremendous real damage too.

In D.C.--a city where student performance continues to be abysmal despite
nearly double the per-capita funding of surrounding "rich" counties--some of
the most well-regarded schools in heavily-minority neighborhoods are charters.
Indeed, D.C. charters educate about 45% of the students and are outperforming
the district schools, despite having poorer students and less funding:
[http://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-
bank/2015/10/05/wash...](http://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-
bank/2015/10/05/washington-dc-shows-why-charter-schools-are-taking-off;)
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/more-dc-
stude...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/more-dc-students-are-
attending-highest-performing-charter-schools-ratings-
show/2014/11/13/3d0a4cf0-6b57-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html)

Educating kids in poor minority neighborhoods is hard enough. There is no
reason to hamstring the process--indeed, to make it intractable--by running
schools like General Motors circa 1960.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I was going to say something similar but with less facts :-) We've talked with
a number of charter school efforts and one of the supports for such schools is
the notion that the students that attend _want_ to attend so being expelled is
an actual deterrent. Further, teachers who want to teach classes of students
who want to be there don't want to be fired which provides incentive to be
better teachers.

I think the NAACPs primary agenda here is that they feel Charter schools
create a policy "out" for the history of being unwilling to take the steps
necessary to make public schools work (and union reform is high on that list).
As a result they can't get any traction on getting the public schools fixed if
the policy maker says "well get your children into the charter school if you
have a problem with it." and since Charter schools cannot serve the entire
population, people will not make it in who would have benefited from being in,
and the school they are "forced" to go to, is being neglected by people who
should fix it.

~~~
newjersey
I see private schools with the same disdain as I see bottled water. People
drinking bottled water and refusing to drink tap water is our failure whether
it be actual investment in water infrastructure or in "optics" of our water
infrastructure. People sending their kids to privately managed schools is a
failure of our public schools or the "optics" of our public schools.

I remember that I just said the other day that we can train and retrain law
enforcement all day long but we won't see any meaningful improvement without
enforcement with "teeth" and that unions are actively hurting their members if
not because of what they do then because of the "optics" of what they do. I
think the same applies for teachers' unions as well.

We talked about the case of interns being fired en masse a little while ago
and some of not many people in that discussion agreed that it didn't look good
that the interns were riled up over something (dress code) that didn't help
the business much. When teachers bring up the issue of low pay, I can't help
but feel a lot of parents and voters see it as selfish in the same way. "The
teachers should not spend so much time thinking about their own pay but rather
about the students and what they can do to help students."

> I think the NAACPs primary agenda here is that they feel Charter schools
> create a policy "out" for the history of being unwilling to take the steps
> necessary to make public schools work (and union reform is high on that
> list).

Absolutely! I kind of want to go back to the topic of tap water versus bottled
water. The people who can't afford to buy bottled water are unlikely to have
much of a voice in local government to have their issue fixed. The parents who
can't get their kids in chartered schools or who don't care enough to get
their kids in chartered schools are unlikely to have much of a voice in local
government to make public education better either. Now that I think about it,
it sounds just like segregation. The only difference is that instead of an
official policy, it is a little more latent.

~~~
rayiner
Charter schools are public schools, just managed by private organizations. And
it's not a situation where only rich people can get their kids into charter
schools. For example, in D.C. the public schools in rich white neighborhoods
(Georgetown, Capitol Hill) are district-run. Charter public schools are
concentrated neighborhoods with mostly minority populations.

Nationally, Charters often have comparable proportions (and in some cases, a
larger proportion) of students from disadvantaged groups:
[http://www.publiccharters.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/NAP...](http://www.publiccharters.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/01/NAPCS-2010-2011-Race_Ethnicity-Details-from-the-
Dashboard_20120516T152831.pdf).

~~~
krisdol
Charter schools can dismiss students without due process, can kick out or deny
students with low grades, and are usually not obligated to provide special
education services. They are not public schools. They are corporate-run
political organizations that prop up dozens of these PACs pushing an pro-
charter agenda.

[https://cloakinginequity.com/2016/08/01/breaking-news-
aclu-f...](https://cloakinginequity.com/2016/08/01/breaking-news-aclu-finds-
many-illegal-policies-in-charter-schools/)

~~~
rayiner
> Charter schools can dismiss students without due process, can kick out or
> deny students with low grades

Those are good things. These kids almost always have serious impulse control
problems, and it's better for both those kids and for everyone else to have
education tailored to those kids' needs. Teachers should be teachers--they
shouldn't have to do double-duty as behavioral therapists.

> and are usually not obligated to provide special education services.

That's just false. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act's (IDEA)
requirement to provide education appropriate to individuals with disabilities
applies to charter schools:
[https://www2.ed.gov/offices/OCR/archives/charterqa/chardisab...](https://www2.ed.gov/offices/OCR/archives/charterqa/chardisab.html).

> corporate-run

Those aren't dirty words. Do you want your school run like an Apple Store, or
like a DMV location?

~~~
tptacek
We can debate whether they're good things or not, but they clearly confound
comparisons with non-charter schools, which do not get to apply those kinds of
selection powers to improve their published outcomes.

~~~
pen2l
> We can debate whether they're good things or not, but they clearly confound
> comparisons with non-charter schools

I don't understand your comment at all, but I am very curious to know what you
actually mean. Can you please clarify and expand? To begin, what do you mean
by "they" when you say we can debate whether they're good things or not?

~~~
newjersey
I'll try. People often say that students from charter schools outperform
students from (other) public schools. If we let charter schools kick students
out, we should let all public schools let kick students out so as to level the
playing field.

Imagine we compare Denver Broncos against Miami Dolphins. Just a small
adjustment. We require Miami Dolphins to let anyone who is a resident of
Florida in the team. We put no such restriction on the Denver Broncos (because
Go Broncos!) Now, we compare average 40 yard dash between the "average" Denver
Broncos player and the "average" Miami Dolphins "player". What do you think
will happen?

------
crazy1van
I don't understand why a prerequisite for other types of schools is a lack of
privately managed charter schools. Inner city schools are such a disaster, it
seems like the last thing we should be doing is blocking any new ideas --
privately managed or not.

~~~
erichocean
> * Inner city schools are such a disaster*

Inner cities are a disaster, full stop. Which probably explains why the
schools there _are also_ a disaster.

After all, wouldn't it be strange if inner cities were a disaster but the
schools located there were a paragon of academic achievement?

------
ChicagoBoy11
Here comes a system that threatens to give some more power to lower income
families, and the suggestion is that those systems should be abolished because
it gives some parents/families more power than others. That is utterly insane.
To disallow these other systems from existing is to perpetuate the idea that
poor -- and usually black families -- need the state to decide what is best
for them and their children. THAT is the really racist point of view.

There is this alarming trend in our politics which seems to have decided that
the poorer and blacker you are, the less you ought to be trusted with your and
your own family's livelihood. It's amazing for me to see all of the teachers
that I know (I work in the ed. industry) speak often about trying to get into
better placements in other schools and whatnot, but at the same time, when it
comes to choice and mobility for lower income families, somehow then the
"obvious" decision is to force them to be in the system that has
systematically underserved them for decades.

If the arguments about needing to put money into public schools is real, and
that the exit of certain students to charter schools serves to further
undermine the quality of public education, then let's really go all out: Let's
forbid charter schools from developing and let's strictly enforce the
publicly-funded neighborhood school. But then, let's do the same with
administrators, teachers, and staff: Let's have them all be assigned to a
school, without any possibility of re-assignment.

See how well teachers/unions/NAACP like that policy...

------
ianamartin
Disclosure: I work for Success Academy Charter Schools. I'm a software
developer on the Data Science team here, and I'm obviously biased.

We were specifically called out in the article for having a board composition
that is not diverse and also not representative of parents. It's not clearly
stated but is implied that this combination of elements cannot lead to good
outcomes for the students involved, and the NAACP is specifically saying that
charter schools in general are bad for minorities.

I don't know the education landscape well enough to argue that charter schools
are, in general, a good thing for society.

But I do know specifically about what we are doing and how we are doing it and
how effective we are at it.

State testing results were released a couple of weeks ago, and we scrambled to
make sense of the numbers. Results are here:

[http://www.successacademies.org/results/](http://www.successacademies.org/results/)

I can't speak for charter schools as a class, but I can talk about ours. We do
outperform public schools consistently and by a wide margin.

There is no spin to these results. We--as a data science team--are ruthlessly
and brutally honest with ourselves and with the organization and with the
public about how we are performing.

Our organization is guilty as charged in the article of having a board full of
mostly white, male, wealthy individuals. Facts are facts, after all.

What doesn't get mentioned is that we target our schools to the areas in NYC
that are served the worst by public education. And we are out-performing not
only the public schools that are closest in proximity but almost _all_ public
schools in NYC and NY state.

The kids that go to our schools are overwhelmingly minorities, overwhelmingly
in poor socio-economic circumstances, and overwhelmingly beating the odds and
getting one of the best possible educations that's available anywhere. And
they are getting that education as close to home as possible or, if they
choose, as close to where they would like to be. That's the data that can't be
argued with.

The personal anecdotal information that has no bearing on this situation is
what I see on the subway day in and day out. I see kids in little SA uniforms
with their little SA backpacks on the subway with each other or with a parent,
talking about what they learned in school today, what they are excited about
learning tomorrow.

None of this represents the official stance of SA, by the way. I'm just a guy
writing code and posting on HN. But my opinion is that quality of education is
one of the major factors driving inequality in this country right now. I think
that we--Success Academy--are a positive influence.

I think that the NAACP stance as stated in the resolution would hurt us, our
mission, and the students that we teach every day. I'm not an expert on
education in general, and I'm not an expert on race-relations or equality. And
I will happily accept critiques about how we can do things better and how we
should.

But the NAACP ban on charter schools isn't something that helps the situation.
As I see it, the situation is bad. Public schools are not getting the job
done. Reform isn't working. We need innovation in this space, and that can't
happen within the strictures of the DOE and unionized teachers.

This country needs a better, more equitable education model. And we are trying
to find that model. And we are doing it with a data-centric attitude. Every
decision we make is based on data. From where to open the next school to how
we use technology in the classroom to how we decide to skip or hold back a
student.

The article makes it sound like it's impossible for an organization run by
wealthy white males to do anything other than make life better for other
wealthy white males. It makes an implicit assumption that we are all incapable
of working toward a goal of better for everyone. That is clearly not true. The
real data does not support that at all.

To be very squishy and not data-centric about it, I devote my life to making
the world a better place for minorities. I work hard on my nights and weekends
to make life a little better for kids I don't know. Kids who probably wouldn't
have a chance in the world if they went to a public school.

Everyone at SA does that. A blanket judgement that all charter schools are bad
is wrong in at least one instance.

~~~
efuquen
> A blanket judgement that all charter schools are bad is wrong in at least
> one instance.

I don't think they made any such statement.

> We applaud the one out of five charter schools that are truly centers of
> innovation, fulfilling their original intent.

> I suggest they all take a deep breath and read the resolutions again. The
> NAACP does not want charter schools shut down. It wants a pause on new,
> privately managed charters.

------
powertower
This has nothing to do with fairness, the schools, the teachers, nor anything
else they throw into the argument.

Most of the "bad" schools get the same (or even more) amount of funding,
resources, coursework/material, as the "good" schools.

The difference that separates the two categories are the students (and their
parents).

Charter schools simply don't have to put up with the same destructive students
- and are able to create a productive environment for learning for the
constructive students.

The problem is they tend to also not follow the NAACP approved racial
demographics/splits.

~~~
mjevans
There are several problems that are conflated.

Schools are being used to:

* Warehouse children while their guardian(s) work.

* Train young animals that they are more than wild animals.

* Educate children so that they can be functional in society.

* Allow society to examine children it's members are raising to make sure that things are going well.

The problem is a lack of recognition that these are the actual tasks being
formed and the lack of positive feedback loops designed to promote success in
these tasks.

I think it would also help if 'schools' were more like an MMO-RPG
quest/leveling system than an assembly line.

------
natrius
The recommendations at the end of the article sound pretty reasonable. Choice
is great, but the switching costs are pretty high when schools mistreat
students and parents. Transparent representation for students and parents
seems required for good outcomes.

------
andrewclunn
So, less about the advancement of colored people, and more about being lock-
step with the Democratic party (which in this case means the teachers' union).

~~~
noobermin
The article states how the NAACP believes private charter schools hurt blacks
and minorities specifically.

~~~
zeveb
> The article states how the NAACP believes private charter schools hurt
> blacks and minorities specifically.

Which is to say, the NAACP is reiterating the teachers' unions' talking
points. It may even believe them — I can't say.

------
simbalion
Any organization which still refers to people of African and Middle Eastern
descent as "colored people" should come under scrutiny before any of their
causes are taken seriously.

