Meeting Street Academy: Good School, Bad Policy

The plans sound great. For 200 motivated students and their parents who might otherwise get lost in the morass of Charleston County schools, Meeting Street Academy is a life raft available to the neediest. It's also a black eye to the Charleston County School District.

Perhaps it's Sherman Financial Group's guilty conscience from preying on the least educated among us that impels the plan for Meeting Street Academy into being. If so, we can live with its $9 million-and-counting expenditures for the school. However, I must respectfully disagree with Saturday's editorial praising the City of Charleston's involvement. [See City Is Right to Help School.]

What is the story behind this wheeler-dealer deal? You know there has to be one, even if the P & C's editorial writers are naive. Sherman Financial, a bottom feeder that must be raking in money hand-over-fist in this economy, could easily spend the almost $5 million to purchase the land itself.

• Sherman Financial wouldn't build the school unless the City drew upon its taxpayers?
  
• Well, why would that be?
• The school wouldn't be built in that area unless the City paid for the land?
  
• Well, why would that be?
• The area wouldn't be developed unless the City paid for the land so that the school could be built there?
  
• Well, why would that be?

And, most importantly, why isn't anyone representing the taxpayers asking these questions?