Charter School Parents Target Senators Cano, Pearson for Blocking Access for Minority Children

Charter School Parents Target Senators Cano, Pearson for Blocking Access for Minority Children

The parents' group Stop the Wait RI, which has been working to preserve the 5,800 new public charter school seats that were approved last December by the Rhode Island Board of Education, is furthering the fight. 

The battle has been ongoing at the General Assembly all session. It pits a group of hundreds of primarily Black and Latino parents against a number of powerful state legislators with close ties to the teachers' unions in Rhode Island.

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In a new series of mailers, the parents' group calls on Senators Sandra Cano and Ryan Pearson to reverse course and support the effort to improve education for low-income children in the urban corridor.

The mailer to Cano’s district states, “Her first act as chairwoman [of the Senate Education Committee] was to limit access to high-quality charter schools for Black and Latino children.”

“She took a bad vote, but it’s not too late. This awful bill hasn’t become law yet,” adds the mailer.

 

Pearson —  Has Never Visited the RI’s Largest School District

Pearson has proclaimed himself the General Assembly's leading expert on education in Rhode Island. In an interview earlier this year with GoLocal, he admitted he had never visited any of the schools in the state's largest school district -- Providence. According to a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University released in June of 2019, researchers found that Providence schools were among the worst in the United States.

The mailer to Pearson’s district said, “As the Chair of the powerful Finance Committee, he is in a position to help those who need it the most, but that isn’t what he’s doing. Instead, he sponsored legislation that hurts Black and Latino kids by placing a moratorium on high-quality public charter schools. Sadly, Ryan has a long history of attacking charter schools and their funding... forcing Black and Latino parents to go to the State House year after year to protect their children’s right to a good education."

The battle over the legislation will pick up in the coming weeks as the General Assembly returns from break.