The group, Powerful Parents Network, told reporters outside the speech that they were protesting Warren’s proposal to freeze funding for new charter schools, saying that they perceive the plan as taking away the “choice” of where they send their children to school. When Warren released her K-12 education plan, she called for freezing federal funding for expanding charters, subjecting charter schools to the same levels of transparency as public schools, and banning for-profit charter schools to the anger of charter school activists…

Members of the protest group, largely composed of black women, said that charter schools have helped their children, who they say live in poor and failing school districts and receive a better education. They said Warren was silencing the voices of poor black women.

“She’s talking about valuing black women, what about these black women who are living every day with their kids not getting a decent education, and charter schools give them an option,” said one protester, who didn’t give his name.