In Friday’s Triangle Business Journal, Dale Gibson says (subscription required) that it is “time to shift this [charter school] money back to public schools and say farewell to charter schools.” (Note: charter schools are public schools.) Yes, that includes closing wildly successful schools like Franklin Academy Charter School (a school that he praised once upon a time) and Charter Day School and throwing 30,000 kids back into district schools that they desperately do not want to attend.
Mr. Gibson uses the NC Center for Public Policy Research charter school report to support his notion. As I have pointed out in the past, the NCCPPR report is flawed to the bone. Mr. Gibson should be commended for having such unfettered faith in the power of research, but by making such a sweeping pronouncement based on the weight of one report, Mr. Gibson appears to have let his faith get in the way of critical thinking. The term “zealot” comes to mind.
Admittedly, the editorial made me angry at first read (and you won’t like me when I’m angry), but the more I thought about it, the more amused I became. And it is not the shameless “throwing out the baby with the bath water” mentality that made me eventually shrug my shoulders. It is the fact that Mr. Gibson’s clever little scheme to get attention for himself worked. So, I salute you, Dale Gibson, for proving that absurdity is the most convenient route to publicity.
