Yes, it's impossible to mention north Portland without invoking deep history. 

And it's easy to assume that every commentor on a "black story" is a racist jerk. I'll admit to being a jerk on my best days, but I've mostly worked through the former, and try to be a better parent in that respect than mine were. 

Charter schools are always a difficult situation. On one extreme you have corporations looking to turn a profit, and religions and idealogues looking to undermine public education. On the other extreme we have parents just looking for a better solution to their child's education. Long-term, those two agendas are often diametrically opposed to each other. Short-term, maybe not so much. My point is that turning over public facilities to charter schools is a slippery slope... in the long term.