Charters make their play - Bites - Opinions - May 10, 2012 - Sacramento News & Review

Charters make their play - Bites - Opinions - May 10, 2012 - Sacramento News & Review:

Charters make their play

By Cosmo Garvin 
cosmog@newsreview.com

This article was published on 05.10.12.

The Sacramento County Office of Education isn’t in the news all that much. But there have been a run of stories in The Sacramento Bee lately setting the stage for SCOE board elections in June.
Basically, Team Scoopy has framed the election as a contest between the well-meaning charter-school operators—Margaret Fortune in particular—and bloated union stooges who criticize charter schools.
That’s trouble for Harold Fong, the only SCOE board member who opposed the Fortune Schools application last year. Margaret Fortune has reported giving $1,100 to Fong’s challenger,Christina Shipman. The Bee also just endorsed a slate of charter supporters, including Shipman.
“They basically want to take out the person who opposed the Fortune charter. They want to send a message,” Fong told Bites.
He opposed it partly because the Fortune charter application was explicitly about closing the “achievement gap” for black students. A worthy goal, to be sure. But given that other Fortune schools are somewhere around 80 percent African-American, “I had serious reservations that