NAACP members call for ban on privately managed charter schools
Disclosure: I work for Success Academy Charter Schools. I&#x27;m a software developer on the Data Science team here, and I&#x27;m obviously biased.<p>We were specifically called out in the article for having a board composition that is not diverse and also not representative of parents. It&#x27;s not clearly stated but is implied that this combination of elements cannot lead to good outcomes for the students involved, and the NAACP is specifically saying that charter schools in general are bad for minorities.<p>I don&#x27;t know the education landscape well enough to argue that charter schools are, in general, a good thing for society.<p>But I do know specifically about what we are doing and how we are doing it and how effective we are at it.<p>State testing results were released a couple of weeks ago, and we scrambled to make sense of the numbers. Results are here:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.successacademies.org&#x2F;results&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.successacademies.org&#x2F;results&#x2F;</a><p>I can&#x27;t speak for charter schools as a class, but I can talk about ours.  We do outperform public schools consistently and by a wide margin.<p>There is no spin to these results. We--as a data science team--are ruthlessly and brutally honest with ourselves and with the organization and with the public about how we are performing.<p>Our organization is guilty as charged in the article of having a board full of mostly white, male, wealthy individuals. Facts are facts, after all.<p>What doesn&#x27;t get mentioned is that we target our schools to the areas in NYC that are served the worst by public education. And we are out-performing not only the public schools that are closest in proximity but almost <i>all</i> public schools in NYC and NY state.<p>The kids that go to our schools are overwhelmingly minorities, overwhelmingly in poor socio-economic circumstances, and overwhelmingly beating the odds and getting one of the best possible educations that&#x27;s available anywhere. And they are getting that education as close to home as possible or, if they choose, as close to where they would like to be. That&#x27;s the data that can&#x27;t be argued with.<p>The personal anecdotal information that has no bearing on this situation is what I see on the subway day in and day out. I see kids in little SA uniforms with their little SA backpacks on the subway with each other or with a parent, talking about what they learned in school today, what they are excited about learning tomorrow.<p>None of this represents the official stance of SA, by the way. I&#x27;m just a guy writing code and posting on HN. But my opinion is that quality of education is one of the major factors driving inequality in this country right now. I think that we--Success Academy--are a positive influence.<p>I think that the NAACP stance as stated in the resolution would hurt us, our mission, and the students that we teach every day. I&#x27;m not an expert on education in general, and I&#x27;m not an expert on race-relations or equality. And I will happily accept critiques about how we can do things better and how we should.<p>But the NAACP ban on charter schools isn&#x27;t something that helps the situation. As I see it, the situation is bad. Public schools are not getting the job done. Reform isn&#x27;t working. We need innovation in this space, and that can&#x27;t happen within the strictures of the DOE and unionized teachers.<p>This country needs a better, more equitable education model. And we are trying to find that model. And we are doing it with a data-centric attitude. Every decision we make is based on data. From where to open the next school to how we use technology in the classroom to how we decide to skip or hold back a student.<p>The article makes it sound like it&#x27;s impossible for an organization run by wealthy white males to do anything other than make life better for other wealthy white males. It makes an implicit assumption that we are all incapable of working toward a goal of better for everyone. That is clearly not true. The real data does not support that at all.<p>To be very squishy and not data-centric about it, I devote my life to making the world a better place for minorities. I work hard on my nights and weekends to make life a little better for kids I don&#x27;t know. Kids who probably wouldn&#x27;t have a chance in the world if they went to a public school.<p>Everyone at SA does that. A blanket judgement that all charter schools are bad is wrong in at least one instance.