African American charter parents, alumni, teachers, leaders, students and community members will gather outside Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters for a press conference on Thursday February 9, to tell the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) that charter schools are transforming lives in their neighborhoods. After the press conference, the group will participate in the NAACP’s Task Force on Quality Education hearing to discuss the role of charter schools in their city and in their communities. The hearing will be held inside the Ron Deaton Civic Auditorium at 2:00 pm.
In October 2016, the NAACP’s national board called for a moratorium on expanding charter public schools. The decision was symbolic rather than legally enforceable, but it prompted an outcry from charter school families and educators throughout California who cherish the high quality education that charters provide. African American students who attend charters in California are more academically proficient and more likely to graduate college-ready than their peers in traditional schools according to an abundance of publicly available data and academic studies.
There are nearly 575,000 charter school students in California, of which more than 47,000 are African American. There are almost 1,200 charter schools in the state.
