History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
NAACP got it right in charter school debate
- 06-16-2011
-
Commentary by Earl Ofari Hutchinson/ New America Media
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst and an associate editor of New America Media.
NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous was dismayed at the vehemence of the verbal tirades and demonstrations against his organization for joining with the United Federation of Teachers to stop a handful of charter schools around Harlem from opening or expanding in public school buildings. “We just had no idea how much tension it would create,” Jealous said. The NAACP simply regarded the lawsuit it filed as a way to prevent the loss of funds and space for chronically underfunded and cramped inner-city public schools. The suit did even imply that charter schools were a bad thing. It did not say that the schools should not open. But despite the care that the NAACP took to not excoriate charter schools, it still took the heat. The debate over charter schools versus public schools is too volatile, contentious, and frustrating not to stir passion. (more...)
Send this
Print this
