Jeb Bush’s organization tweeted on the morning of February 20 that I “liken school choice to Nazi invasion.” Whoever posted that tweet under the name of Jeb Bush’s organization either maliciously ignored the fact that the first sentence of the post says that the post was written by a parent, or was confused by the formatting. I did not liken school choice to a Nazi invasion, period.
I can’t do anything to diminish the malice of others, but I did revise the post to insert the words, “she writes” to make clear where her comment begins. And I added the link to the Naison-Bernstein post to which the comment refers.
I want to add that I defend the right of everyone to use historical analogies to refer to current events. People do that all the time, as well they should. Free speech permits anyone to use analogies to slavery, Jim Crow, the Brown decision, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Great Depression, McCarthyism, Prohibition, the Holocaust, Chamberlain, the Munich Pact, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Pearl Harbor, or any other historical event or person to make a point. I believe in free speech. It is your choice to like their analogy or not like it, but it insults the intelligence of everyone to say that all historical analogies are out of bounds. If people make ridiculous analogies, then it makes them look ridiculous.
So to clear up any confusion, here is where the original blog begins.
This parent takes issue with Mark Naison and Bruce Bernstein, who wrote a post about how to tell whether your local charter school is avaricious. The few “good charters” are used by the corporate charter chains to clear the path:
She writes:
Superb list. Very true. However, I must disagree with this sentence: “We will not categorically write off charter schools because there are some great ones.”
Maybe. But the privatizers declared war on our schools, our kids, our teachers, our parents and our taxpayers.
We didn’t start this war, any more than Poland in 1939. But we must fight back. And ultimately, emerge victorious.
And when you’re in a war, and you’re defending the lives of your community, unfortunately, nuance or thoughtful qualifications become luxuries we can no longer afford.
Every “ed reformer” has lines like this down pat: “Well, charter schools aren’t a silver bullet. I’d never pretend that they’ll solve all of our education challenges. And I’ll be the first to admit that there are some bad apples. But we should all acknowledge that there are some great ones…” blah blah blah and before you know it, you wake up one day and you’re living in Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia or Indianapolis, with the mayor running the show, and cutting up “the pie” for all his fellow country clubbers and new billionaire buddies.
You may technically be right about some “good charters”, but I think such a reasonable concession is just what they’ll use as an excuse to then drive a truck right through it.
