School choice, it's the new apartheid. Proposition 39 illustrated!

First published on tumblr on July 28, 2013

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From the Communities & Families Resisting Proposition 39 Charter Colocations group on Facebook. The photograph is from a LAUSD public school with a Proposition 39 charter colocation on its campus. The privately managed charter corporation, with its extra funds donated by right-wing plutocrats, has resources to provide arts and other activities for students that public school students are denied. Here a performance at the charter school in which the children listen to a song about loving everyone—while the public school children look on through a chain link fence.

School choice, it's the new apartheid. Proposition 39 is the tacit reinstitution of Plessy v. Ferguson. Join the struggle to end the lucrative charter industry and return education to the realm of public commons governed by the public.

solidaridad: The 99 Cents Store School... brought to you by the lucrative charter school industry

First published on solidaridad on July 7, 2013

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Lalo Alcaraz's La Cucaracha strip often features pro-public education items, which are also typically sensitive to ongoing attacks on the teaching profession and the difficulties of teaching. This particular strip is a favorite of mine, highlighting both the institutional racism and profit motive behind the neoliberal school privatization project.

In Los Angeles, the 99 Cents Store School model is reserved for impoverished children of color at centers of creativity culling and cultural sterilization like Green Dot, CNCA, ICEF, KIPP, and Alliance.

Wealthier white parents, send their kids to boutique charters — essentially private schools where the public foots the bill. Larchmont, Los Feliz, Gabriella, CWC, and Mike McGalliard's Metro Charter are all examples of the "Saks Fifth Avenue School" discussed in the comic strip. Bear in mind that children with special needs aren't welcome at either type of privately managed charter school.