Opinion

Fighting charters: It’s about equality

THE ISSUE: The NAACP and UFT’s fight against co-locating traditional public schools and charters.

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Once again, The Post blames the victims rather than the perpetrators (“UFT-NAACP Child Abuse,” Editorial, June 24).

It is not the UFT and NAACP that are guilty of child abuse but the Department of Education, which has placed more and more of the neediest students — over-age, undercredited, English language learners and special-education students — in a few chosen schools.

The DOE then cuts funding to these same schools, calls the schools failures and tries to close them, illegally.

David Pecoraro

UFT Chapter Leader

Beach Channel High School

Rockaway Park

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If your open-minded readers could make an in-depth visit to most buildings where charter and traditional district schools are co-located, they would discover glaring differences in the resources provided to them.

Charter schools are the pet projects of people who masquerade as education reformers with the welfare of children at heart. But what really drives them is vicious and mindless anti-unionism.

The UFT and NAACP are driven by one overarching agenda: respect for the law and responsible devotion to all children, with no exceptions.

Ron Isaac

Fresh Meadows

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To compare the leading civil-rights organization and local union to child abusers is disgusting. The two organizations are trying to prevent a “separate but equal” situation.

All students should have great facilities and a first-rate education. No student should be in a building with old facilities or have limited access to such places as the gym or art room while other students in the building are treated better.

The DOE must support all schools. These principles are what the suit is based on, and it’s my hope that these two great organizations prevail.

Michael Friedman

The Bronx

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Not once does your editorial address the many documented examples of inequity in school co-locations.

It doesn’t matter whether the school with better resources is traditional public or charter. The fact that this practice exists (and is celebrated by The Post) is a clear example of a violation of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

This case is not about the UFT trying to protect its members’ jobs.

Union-represented teachers lose their position but not their jobs when traditional public schools close.

Khiera Kersey-Heggs

Washington Heights

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Charter schools are either chasing out community schools or claiming unequal privileges.

Equal education is something the NAACP and the UFT have always successfully fought for.

Charter schools shouldn’t become the privileged class. They seem to be based on profit-making models that don’t produce any better results, and the teachers seem to be abused by working endless hours with no extra compensation.

Teddy Pearlman

Manhattan

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The city is destroying a wonderful school system in which UFT members work tirelessly to educate.

Charter schools pick and choose their students, but public schools accept and educate everyone, from the neediest to the brightest.

Our schools need to be fixed, not replaced. The city needs to provide funding for the schools. They operate at a bare-bones minimum yet are expected to provide a quality education.

Parents should be angry — their children are being used as pawns.

Jessica Jacobs

Staten Island