Among the most controversial issues expected to be taken up this week at the Cincinnati meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People board is a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter schools.
The NAACP membership endorsed a moratorium on privately managed charter schools this summer at the national convention in Ohio. The resolution, which has to be approved by the 64-member NAACP board, expresses concern over discipline, increased segregation and financial mismanagement in charter schools. The growth of for-profit charter schools sector also concerns the NAACP. A similar resolution was approved by the Movement for Black Lives.
Among those attending the July NAACP conference was Jondré Pryor, the 2016 Georgia Charter School Association Principal of the Year. Pryor is in his ninth year as principal of KIPP South Fulton Academy in East Point.
He questions the proposed NAACP moratorium and says the opposition to charter schools is based on misinformation.
"At the convention, I was in a hall with 2,000 people who looked like me and shared my belief in black advocacy and empowerment. But I came to realize that we part ways when it comes to the school choices we believe families should have," writes Pryor in the AJC Get Schooled blog. "At the NAACP conference, when I told the delegates about the school I lead and the 345 scholars in grades 5-8 who go there, they were surprised to learn that KIPP is a nonprofit, not a company seeking to make money."
To read more, go to the AJC Get Schooled blog.
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