N.A.A.C.P. on Friday defended its involvement in a lawsuit to block 20 charter schools from opening in public school buildings this fall, saying it was trying to halt city plans to create what it considered a two-tiered education system.
About 50 people, including many Harlem political leaders, staged a rally on Lenox Avenue outside the offices of the Success Charter Network, one of the city’s largest charter school networks.
The rally was meant to counter a rally in front of the State Office Building in Harlem last week. That gathering drew about 2,500 parents and students, who came from charter schools around the city to demand that the N.A.A.C.P. withdraw its support from the lawsuit.
The suit, filed by the city’s teachers’ union, would prevent 20 charter schools from opening and expanding in September inside of traditional public school buildings. The process, known as co-location, allows charter schools to move into public school buildings and share their facilities.
Critics of the N.A.A.C.P. have contended that it was betraying charter school parents — most of whom are black or Hispanic — in order to stand by United Federation of Teachers, a longtime ally.
But the N.A.A.C.P. and its supporters said the chief executive of the Success Charter Network, Eva S. Moskowitz, had unfairly singled out the group, arranging the rally last week, as well as a barrage of calls and complaints challenging the N.A.A.C.P.’s commitment to its African-American base.
Hazel N. Dukes, the president of the N.A.A.C.P. New York State Conference, said Friday’s rally intended to set the record straight about the organization’s intentions.
We didn’t come today to fight charters,” she said. “We came today to fight for a quality education for all children.
Harlem residents gathered last month to urge the NAACP to drop a lawsuit it had filed with the teachers union against the New York City Department of Education. That lawsuit seeks to stop the closure of 22 bad schools as well as the placement of several charter schools in district school space. The lawsuit essentially could lead to the closing of several high-performing charter schools that primarily serve black children in Harlem. Seeing this threat, thousands of parents took to the street against those who would deny their child a good education — even if that meant marching against the NAACP.
In response, an NAACP spokesman says that the group supports alternative schools but doesn’t want the city to neglect its public schools. But wait a minute. Charter schools are public schools. What the NAACP seems intent on preserving is the “system” of New York public schools that has failed kids in Harlem for far too many years. System preservation has emerged as the common refrain from those fighting expanding charter schools and quality educational options for parents. Preserving such a system in its current form would ensure that thousands of low-income minority children fail to get the education they deserve. Ironically, the NAACP has become the protector of the status quo it once fought.
As an African American growing up in the ’60s, I revered the NAACP. I will never forget when my mother took me to a NAACP-League of Women Voters rally at Butler University in Indianapolis, my hometown. My mother was active in both groups, which, at that time, were protesting the presence of Alabama Gov. George Wallace on Butler’s campus. Wallace was an avowed segregationist who famously stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to block the entrance of its first black student, James Meredith. Only 7 at the time, I distinctly remember carrying a sign that I pointed in Wallace’s face. I don’t recall what the sign said, but I knew he didn’t want boys like me to get an education. As the police pushed me aside, my mother and her fellow protesters praised me for marching like a man for equal rights. Later, when my parents sat me down to give me my own NAACP membership card, I was proud beyond words.
I reflected on that time when I saw a photo of young black students at the Harlem march against the NAACP. I could see myself in one of those photos — a boy standing with his mom, holding a sign and making a statement in support of his future. I couldn’t help but see the irony: me marching with the NAACP against Wallace, and today’s children marching against the NAACP. It just shows that black parents will fight for the progress and quality education that their kids deserve — no matter who is standing in the way.
The writer, a former member of the D.C. Council, serves as board chair for the Black Alliance for Educational Options and Democrats for Education Reform.
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