The NAACP has taken the unusual position of joining a lawsuit to keep open 22 failing public schools serving predominantly minority students while at the same time restricting the growth of high-performing charter schools in many of the same communities. Not surprisingly, parents are upset.
On Thursday morning over three thousand parents and students gathered in Harlem to protest the NAACP’s involvement in the lawsuit. Kathleen Kernivan, a parent from Leadership Prep Ocean Hill told the crowd:
“My child cannot be told that she’s not going to get to go to her school in September,” she said. “I cannot look her in the eye, as a parent, and tell her, ‘Well, the problem is that this group of people that Mommy told you about during Black History Month, that did all those great things a long time ago–they want to stop you from doing great things.”
Asked for comment, the New York NAACP President Hazel Dukes said that the parents “can march and have rallies all day long…We will not respond.” Hopefully she was paying attention on Thursday. The NAACP’s involvement seems misguided at best, and the thousands of parents and students whose schools they are threatening, deserve a response.
Also, check out the Facebook page NAACP: Don’t Divide Us, Unite Us here.