This week in the war on workers: Black Lives Matter and the NAACP say no to more charter schools

Rss@dailykos.com (laura Clawson) · Saturday, August 20, 2016, 7:08 pm

Here’s some important pushback on the efforts of the corporate education policy world to brand its privatization agenda as a civil rights issue:

A few weeks ago, the Movement for Black Lives, the network that also includes Black Lives Matter organizers, released its first-ever policy agenda. Among the organization's six demands and dozens of policy recommendations was a bold education-related stance: a moratorium on both charter schools and public school closures. Charters, the agenda argues, represent a shift of public funds and control over to private entities. Along with "an end to the privatization of education," the Movement for Black Lives organizers are demanding increased investments in traditional community schools and the health and social services they provide.

The statement came several weeks after another civil rights titan, the NAACP, also passed a resolution, calling for a freeze on the growth of charter schools. The NAACP had equated charters with privatization in previous resolutions, but this year's statement—which will not become policy until the National Board meeting in the fall—represents the strongest anti-charter language to date, according to Julian Vasquez Heilig, a professor of education leadership and education chair of the NAACP's California State Conference. "The NAACP is really concerned about unregulated growth of charter schools, and says it's time to pause and take stock," says Vasquez Heilig, who posted a copy of the resolution on his blog.

The move toward unchecked charter school expansion is draining resources from public schools and allowing some very shady people and groups to run schools with public money, while many charters exclude students with disabilities and other kids who might provide challenges in the relentless drive for higher test scores above all else.

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