CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Another Charter PR Push

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Another Charter PR Push

PA: Another Charter PR Push

The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public [sic] Charter Schools has been having a rough year, what with PA Governor Tom Wolf threatening to finally implement the charter school reforms that the heavily-lobbied legislature just can't seem to get done. So they've launched themselves another PR push to try to make their case.

Meet 143K Rising. This is ostensibly a group of "families united for charter schools," but there's no pretense here that this is a spontaneous grass roots group. As their website puts it, "The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools (PCPCS) has created 143K Rising to give families a voice in the battle to protect public charter schools." And they are raising the alarm-- "Special interest groups are trying to rob Pennsylvania families of their rights. Let's rise up together and stop them!"

The 143K Rising site has a fuzzy handle on most of the issues it is upset about (143K refers to the number of students currently enrolled in charter schools-- no word if they plan to regularly rename the group as enrollment rises or falls). On their "issue" page (apparently there's just one issue), they say that "limiting public charter schools as an educational option" would be "devastating." They complain that "every year" there are "policies that would spell the death of public [sic] charter schools" in the state, proposed by lawmakers "listening to education special interest groups." And if by now you are wondering what, exactly, the proposals are, or who, exactly, these special interest groups are--well, 143K Rising isn't saying. You just have to take their word for it-- evil forces are coming to "take away a child's only hope for a good education."

This chicken littling appears to come in response to the governor's call for things like transparency and ethics; there's been no call for any existing charters to be shut down. But Wolf has been clear CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: PA: Another Charter PR Push