Anti School Choice Diatribe Ignorant of Reality

Our local rag ignores viewpoints it doesn't support in the Letters to the Editor it prints, and it prints an inordinate amount of those whose viewpoints it likes. A recent letter from a New Jersey transplant is a case in point. The writer makes no mention of her expertise in the matter.. If we didn't know better, we'd think it was printed as a satire.

First, Patricia Marino seems unable to distinguish between public and private charter schools. In her analysis, they're all private. Now, she could make some points regarding private charter schools, but she instead blankets all with her condemnation. After all, public charter schools do not "drain state money from the entire education funding pot." In fact, she makes that point about vouchers, a tool not available to anyone in this state except special education students.

Marino makes the same point about "creating two separate school systems."

What the heck does she have in the way of facts to back that up when most of the charters in South Carolina are public? Same goes for her comments about public schools' accepting all students while charter schools do not.

Not true. Try to get into the Academic Magnet or Buist that way! 

Her last paragraph is too revealing:

"Public schools are a pillar of our democracy. We want schools in which people from all walks of life can send their children to learn together, and are democratically controlled by neighbors whom we elect to serve on the school board. They teach not just to read and write, but how to work and live together."

So why doesn't the writer live in an area where she can bump elbows with "people from all walks of life" instead of Cassique, an exclusive Kiawah Island development? 

Until parents find North Charleston Elementary so beguiling that they transfer their children from Mount Pleasant Academy, we know that democratic mix is merely pie in the sky.

If she knew more about the schools in Charleston County, she would have pointed out that public charter schools need the free busing given to magnet and neighborhood public schools.

That's where we can find agreement.