03/29/2024

California charter advocates say public school system ‘failing black kids’

Belting out “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and dancing to “Juju On That Beat” with a Huey the Panther mascot, hundreds of young students and their parents rallied at the Capitol on Wednesday with a message for the first day of Black History Month: Support charter schools in California to raise up African Americans.

“We all know the system is failing black kids. We all know that,” said Margaret Fortune, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s education adviser and now president and CEO of Fortune School, a Sacramento-based charter operator with a mission to “close the African American achievement gap.”

Fortune urged lawmakers to view black students as a high-needs population that should receive more funding, and to provide them with more educational choices by expanding who can authorize charter schools. She pointed out that of 13 predominantly African-American and low-income schools in California that are considered “high-achieving” on state assessments, 12 are charters.

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