The civil-rights group wants a freeze on charter schools, while two-thirds of blacks favor them.
Donald Trump is taking lumps for his clumsy and crude “What the hell do you have to lose?” black outreach effort. Black voters, until recently, seem to have been an afterthought for the Republican presidential nominee, who is much more focused on turning out the millions of white voters who supported John McCain in 2008 but stayed home when Mitt Romney ran four years later.
“Republicans who try to reach black voters by going through the civil-rights establishment have nothing to gain...”
If Mr. Trump is serious about increasing his minority support, we’ll see him participating in more town halls with large black audiences and campaigning in those blighted neighborhoods that he says he wants to improve. If he really wants his message to reach the black electorate, Trump political ads will air on black websites and be featured during black radio and television programs. Until that happens, expect many blacks, including black Republicans and conservatives, to remain skeptical.
Give Mr. Trump credit, however, for not doing something that too many Republican presidential candidates before him have done, only to have it blow up in their face. When the NAACP asked Mr. Trump to address its annual convention last month, he declined. Good for him. Giving speeches to civil-rights groups like the NAACP isn’t effective black outreach. It’s a setup. Blacks open to Republicanism aren’t likely to be found at NAACP gatherings, which are thinly disguised Democratic political rallies. And younger blacks who might be interested in hearing out the GOP have little use for the NAACP. Republicans who try to reach black voters by going through the civil-rights establishment have nothing to gain, unless they like to watch footage of black people booing them on CNN.
There was a time when the NAACP was a responsible gatekeeper of black communities, attuned to their needs and looking out for their best interests. Its leadership was comprised of serious people addressing serious concerns. But those days are a distant memory. Today’s civil-rights leaders and organizations have their own agenda, and their highest priority by far is to stay relevant by insisting that white racism explains racial disparities—even if that means turning the actual problems of poor black communities into a secondary concern.
There have been many examples over the decades of the growing disconnect between the traditional black leadership’s priorities and those of the black underclass, but the latest one is worth examining. Last month the NAACP called for a moratorium on charter schools, even though you would be hard-pressed to find an education model that has done more to narrow the black-white achievement gap over the past quarter century.
Charter schools are among the best public schools in the country. It isn’t uncommon for a charter located in an inner-city ghetto to outperform affluent white suburban schools on standardized tests. Last year in New York City, the nation’s most populous public-school system, the charter schools outperformed all other schools in the state by an average of 18 points in reading, and charters were half of the city’s top 10 schools in math proficiency. It’s no surprise that the wait list for charter schools in many cities is thousands of children long—more than 42,000 students are wait-listed in New York City—and that blacks have the most to lose from the moratorium advocated by the NAACP.
The NAACP claims to be acting in the interests of blacks, but its position on school choice couldn’t be more at odds with the expressed views of black America. According to the latest Education Next national survey figures from Harvard’s Paul Peterson, black support for alternatives to traditional public schools is as robust as it’s ever been. Black respondents backed charter schools by two-to-one. Black support for means-tested vouchers was a similarly strong 66%.
Civil-rights organizations have also been vocal in support of the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure schools into suspending fewer black students regardless of their behavior. Yet the Education Next poll found no groundswell of support for race-based school discipline policies. Less than a third (29%) of all respondents backed the federal effort, including less than half (48%) of all blacks.
The NAACP’s opposition to charter schools and support for coddling black school bullies has little to do with the merits. The bottom line is that teachers unions fiercely oppose school choice and are major contributors to the NAACP. Blaming racially disparate school suspension rates on white racism comports with the organization’s preferred narrative and keeps the NAACP relevant.
Should the Trump campaign do a better job of addressing the actual needs of black voters? Sure. But these days, you could fairly say the same thing about groups like the NAACP.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal