You know an organization has reached rock bottom when it uses children as human shields to advocate its alleged mission. Such is the “save the 194” campaign being waged by Eva Moscowitz and groups with deep pockets and hyperbolic names like “Charter Schools Work” (which tweets under the hilariously fake hashtag “Fam4ExcSchools.”)
Okay, you want to get down and dirty? Announcing ChartersSteal.org, a compendium of the various misdeeds that are part and parcel of the charter school industry.
Let’s begin with my list, which will be appearing on my first post:
How do charters steal?
ChartersSteal by diverting the easiest to teach students into their own schools, and leaving those with learning disabilities and English language learners to fend for themselves.
ChartersSteal by taking money from hedge fund managers and others who earned their fortunes by crashing the economy, and diverting it for their own political means.
ChartersSteal by taking up disproportionate amounts of space in public schools, displacing the students who were originally there.
ChartersSteal by using their students as “human shields” to push their own agenda.
ChartersSteal by promoting the fiction of “failing schools” while only working with a tiny percent of the carefully selected students.
ChartersSteal by using scab teachers like TeachForAmerica recruits who do their two years of service and then move on.
ChartersSteal by educating 4% of the NYC public school population, but taking up 90% of the news cycle.
ChartersSteal by using $75,000 to promote their cause in full page ads in the New York Times, instead of using that money to enhance the work in the classroom.
ChartersSteal by canceling an entire day of school and using scarce resources to ship their students to state capitals to forward their political agenda.
ChartersSteal by overpaying taking taxpayer money to overpay their leaders to the tune of $500,000 per year; twice the pay of the NYC school’s chancellor.
You want to add to the list? Please do!
