PEP, March 2010: Just say no to charter schools

“The charter school movement is about privatizing public schools and is part of a movement to privatize all public services,” guest speaker Sen. Bill Perkins told DC 37’s annual legislative conference Jan 23.

“Harlem is Charter School Central,” said the Harlem state Assembly member. He blasted the mayor for calling the schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, “prep schools for children of color.” He charged that while there are many charter schools in Harlem, “there are none in white communities,” and asked, “If these schools were doing so well, wouldn’t white parents be beating the doors down to get their children in?”

Left behind

Although there is no proof that children do better at charter schools, they are allowed to pluck the brighter and better-behaved students from the city’s 1.1 million public school children. Some are run by companies like Edison, which closed and left New Yorkers with no way to recoup the tax dollars squandered on a job undone.

Many of the charters take up space inside public schools — with no say for the public school parents. “But the children are segregated, separate and unequal, with charter school kids getting better facilities and smaller class sizes,” Perkins said. “Haven’t they heard of Brown v. Board of Education?” he asked, referring to the 1954 Supreme Court decision that banned school segregation.

— DSW