If you want every child to have the basic right to a good education, and if you oppose segregation and discrimination against kids with disabilities as part of that right to a good education, then we need to talk about charter schools. A slew of recent stories from different parts of the country show the danger of sneak privatization they represent.
Perhaps the most powerful story comes from Durham, North Carolina, where Superintendent Pascal Mubenga said that students are not being well served by charter schools—“Go on line, check on the report card”—and that charters are draining money from public schools, but, more importantly, that charters are forces of segregation:
If Durham is not careful, Mubenga said its schools will become segregated like they were in the 1950s.
“We’re going to segregate our schools, and that’s not good,” Mubenga said.
DPS’ enrollment is currently about 82 percent black and Hispanic and 18 percent white. Many schools are already nearly completely black and Hispanic, as white parents have chosen charter schools and private schools to educate their children.
Elsewhere:
- The ACLU of Arizona is pressuring the state’s Charter School Board to stop asking prospective students questions about citizenship. The ACLU also wants charter schools to stop asking students about their academic performance before enrollment, a violation of state law.
- Also in Arizona, a woman says a Phoenix charter school pushed her daughter away for having Type I diabetes.