{"id":566,"date":"2013-03-29T14:09:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T18:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bakeramitchell.com\/?p=566"},"modified":"2013-03-29T14:09:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-29T18:09:00","slug":"scary-reading-in-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/2013\/03\/29\/scary-reading-in-the-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Scary Reading in the Washington Post: WaPo as the low-information raconteur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington, DC<\/b> \u2013 A chatty little diatribe titled \u201c<\/span>Scary reading in charter school bill<\/em>\u201d graced the WaPo on March 28.\u00a0 Confounding misinformation with ignorance in breathtaking fashion, the near-sighted worthy confuses nearly sky-high, out-of-sight \u00a0accountability with \u201capparently none.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

True. If you do not bother to read the statute, no accountability will be apparent to you; and you will not bother to state the fact that the statute requires North Carolina charter schools to take every single end-of-grade and end-of-course test that must be taken by district schools. Not only must charter schools take all the same tests, but they must report the results to the parents and to the State Board of Education.\u00a0 Finally, they must adhere to the \u201cA\u201d to \u201cF\u201d grading system being imposed on all public schools in NC.<\/p>\n

Not reading the statute will also allow you miss the statute\u2019s requirement that every charter school must have an outside auditing firm, approved by the state, examine not only its detailed finances but to test it for legal and procedural compliance with the numerous laws such as the state\u2019s \u201cOpen Meetings Act\u201d and the \u00a0state\u2019s \u201cFreedom of Information\u201d law.<\/p>\n

Not reading the statute will allow you to miss the fact that every child in the state, regardless of academic ability, race, income, location, etc. may attend a charter school according to the law.<\/p>\n

Not reading the statute has allowed the \u201creporter\u201d to miss the fact that a parent may withdraw their child at any time, whereby the funding to the school for that child stops.\u00a0 The ultimate in accountability occurs when parents withdraw their children to force the over-night closure of any charter school in the state.\u00a0 Try that with a government-run district school and the parents will be arrested by Social Services while the government school keeps on getting its money.<\/p>\n

Not reading any of the statutes also allows one to miss the fact any board member in North Carolina may be subject to at least four, and perhaps as many as seven, conflict-of-interest laws, policies, and ethics statements, such as<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. On boards of private non-profit corporations GS 55A,<\/li>\n
  2. On boards of private for-profit corporations GS 55,<\/li>\n
  3. On boards or commissions created by the state or local government GS 138A,<\/li>\n
  4. Standards of Conduct for NC DPI Public Schools of NC (TCS-C-004)<\/li>\n
  5. Official Actions of Public Servants on Advisory Bodies (TCS-C-026),<\/li>\n
  6. On the Public Charter School Advisory Council, or<\/li>\n
  7. On a charter school board.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    WaPo keeps quoting the \u201cProgressive Pulse.\u201d \u00a0It would be helpful if they quoted the complete law instead.\u00a0 For example they mention derisively that the new bill requires charter schools only to make a \u201cbest efforts\u201d attempt to reflect racial and ethnic composition of the LEA in which they are located.\u00a0 Such scorn for best efforts ignores the unmentioned statutory requirement that charter schools must accept all applicants and hold a lottery if there are more applicants than seats.\u00a0 Charter schools are prohibited from employing \u201cpress-gangs\u201d to Shanghai students, nor may they impose any admission requirement other than state residency.<\/p>\n

    WaPo repeats the Pulse\u2019s reporting that the Republican-sponsored bill does not mandate criminal background checks for charter schools, but fails to note that such checks have not been mandated for the government-run schools either.\u00a0\u00a0 If a mandate is a good idea, then why have the last 140 years gone by under Democratic rule without such a mandate.<\/p>\n

    Again quoting the sclerotic Pulse and failing any attempt at independent reporting, WaPo parrots the fact that charters are free to hire their own teachers.\u00a0 Only six blocks away from WaPo is headquartered the esteemed National Council for Teacher Quality which publishes their semi-annual evaluation of teacher preparation programs across our fruited plain. North Carolina\u2019s teacher preparation programs have received a \u201cD-\u201c in every report to date with little, if any, sign of improvement.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.nctq.org\/stpy11Home.do<\/a><\/p>\n

    The men and women who dedicate themselves to the hard work of teaching are to be honored and revered, but school children should not be victims of the poor preparation these teachers receive from the so-called schools of education while some teachers finally become proficient through OJT.\u00a0 And those that do not become proficient through OFT \u2013 guess what?\u00a0 They have tenure, too. Ha, ha.<\/p>\n

    Forcing charter schools to draw its teachers from the same \u201cD-\u201c pool as the government-run schools presents parents with only a Hobson\u2019s choice in education.\u00a0 Instead, for true choice, a charter school may now hire a retired chemist to teach chemistry or a \u00a0real engineer or physicist to teach science. What a novel idea!<\/p>\n

    Yes, the WaPo may be in a class by itself when it comes to removing any notion of thorough fact checking or independent reporting. \u00a0And on second thought, it is not so scary after all.\u00a0 It\u2019s just another vapid screed yakked up by the liberal, lap-dog media.\u00a0 Get out your mop, if you decide to see their article for yourself at http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/answer-sheet\/wp\/2013\/03\/28\/scary-reading-in-charter-school-bill\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    NEWS UPDATE!!!<\/p>\n

    We have the Washington Post with its \u201cscary reading\u201d of the bill.\u00a0 Also, we have the N&R with its \u201cdramatically brazen\u201d label. \u00a0And the Charlotte Observer scurries to keep up by scribbling its own furrowed-brow description of \u201cvery troubling.\u201d (sigh)<\/p>\n

    Since charters are required to take all the same end-of-grade tests as district schools and publish these results for the parents, the truth will out.\u00a0 The money follows the child; and if the parents withdraw their children from a low-performing charter, the school closes.\u00a0 Try that with a district school, and the parent gets a visit from DSS and a deputy while the school continues merrily on its way – a real-life scenario that is truly scary, brazen, and troubling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Washington, DC \u2013 A chatty little diatribe titled \u201cScary reading in charter school bill\u201d graced the WaPo on March 28.\u00a0 Confounding misinformation with ignorance in breathtaking fashion, the near-sighted worthy confuses nearly sky-high, out-of-sight \u00a0accountability with \u201capparently none.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,7,8,11],"tags":[24,49],"class_list":["post-566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-k-12","category-learning-and-education","category-politics","category-politics-nc","category-reviews","tag-charter-schools","tag-lap-dog-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakeramitchelljr.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}