Picking the wrong fight

WASHINGTON

There is, it turns out, something more galling than teachers unions fighting against proposals that would improve education for students in the worst-performing schools. At least the teachers unions are, presumably, acting in the economic self-interest of their members.

What’s more galling is that civil rights groups would oppose Obama administration initiatives to improve failing schools — initiatives that hold the greatest promise for the same minority students whose interests these groups purport to represent. And that the basis for their opposition is the claim that the initiatives are unfair to minority and low-income students.

Seven groups announced their opposition Monday: the NAACP, the National Urban League, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Council for Educating Black Children, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Schott Foundation for Public Education.

As it happened, President Barack Obama was scheduled to speak to the Urban League on Thursday — and he took the opportunity to push back.

Good for him.

“Let me tell you, what’s not working for black kids and Hispanic kids and Native American kids across this country is the status quo,” Obama said. “What’s not working is what we’ve been doing for decades now.”

‘Honest conversation’

While he promised an “honest conversation” about the civil rights’ groups concerns, the president’s tone was rather gentle. Gentler than mine would have been.

First, the groups blast the administration’s signature education reform, its $4 billion Race to the Top fund, because, they argue, the program does not do enough for minority children. “By emphasizing competitive incentives in this economic climate, the majority of low-income and minority students will be left behind,” the statement says.

But as the president pointed out, the only way to win a Race to the Top grant is to come up with a plan to deal with failing schools.

Second, the groups criticize the administration’s “extensive reliance on charter schools,” expressing concern about “the overrepresentation of charter schools in low-income and predominantly minority communities.” Charter schools are in those communities precisely because that’s where failing schools are. The whole point is to give parents and students in those communities an acceptable choice.

Third, the groups say the administration is trigger-happy when it comes to closing failing schools. Better trigger-happy, perhaps, than inert. Too many schools have been failing for too long, with no changes and no consequences. When the 2,000 worst-performing high schools account for 75 percent of minority-student dropouts, something is dangerously wrong. More is risked by letting these schools remain open than in closing them precipitously.

Washington Post Writers Group