EduShyster asks whether charter schools are “progressive.” Would you call the Walton Family Foundation, which hates unions, their biggest financial backer, progressive? Isn’t ALEC, with its model charter legislation, progressive? Would you call charter boosters Governor Scott Walker, Governor Bobby Jindal, Governor Rick Scott, Governor Rick Snyder,and Governor John Kasich, “progressive”?

Charter cheerleaders say they are “saving poor kids from failing schools.” In blue states, they portray themselves as progressive. They don’t bother to explain their strange right-wing bedfellows. They expect us to believe that it is progressive to transfer funding from public schools to privately managed schools.

It is not progressive. It is a classic case of wolf in sheep’s clothing.

EduShyster interviews a venerable civil rights leader in Boston, Mel King, who opposes charters. He says: “If the solution is only meant for a few kids, and all the rest of the kids are left out, where is the liberty and justice for all?”

The reformers’ shining example of charter success is the Edward Brooke school, which posts high test scores.

EduShyster writes:

“Writer Farah Stockman tells the story of the Edward Brooke charter in Mattapan where an all-minority student body posts some of the highest test scores in the city. Stockman skims over the fact that Brooke’s teachers are overwhelmingly white in a city where demands for a more representative teaching force date back decades. She doesn’t mention that minority boys with special needs, who are punished disproportionately in the Boston Public Schools, seem to fare even worse here. Instead, she dwells briefly on the question of whether it matters that a mere 5% of the students at Brooke are still learning English compared to nearly 30% in the Boston Public schools. Stockman concludes that it doesn’t because after all, there are other schools that serve small numbers of English Language Learners. As for what will happen to the rest of those students, she doesn’t bother to say.”