NBC News: Democrats Turning Against Charters
NBC News ran a segment about how Democratic candidates are turning against charter schools. The reasons, says NBC, is DeVos and unions.
The safe position for Democrats is to say that you oppose for-profit charter schools. Sanders went further by echoing the national NAACP and Black Lives Matter and calling for a national moratorium on new charters.
In the show, everyone plays their expected part. Mike Petrilli, authorizer of Ohio charters, claims that only his team (the DeVos choice team) cares about “improving education” by privatizing it and handing it over to entrepreneurs. Shavar Jeffries of the hedge fund managers’ DFER says, “Bernie Sanders apparently thinks he, in Vermont, knows better than low-income African American and Hispanic families in their cities about what’s best for their children,” because Sanders called for a moratorium on new charters. Apparently the hedge fund managers and billionaires who support DFER understand the needs of low-income African American and Hispanic families better than anyone else.
The points that never appear in the news story are, one, that charters have not delivered on their promises. On average, they are no better than public schools and many are far worse. And two, because most charters are CONTINUE READING: NBC News: Democrats Turning Against Charters | Diane Ravitch's blog
