Center for Education Reform on NYT charter school article

Here's The Center for Education Reform on last week's NYT charter school article (Despite Push, Success at Charter Schools Is Mixed; see: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2010/05/despite-push-success-at-charter-schools.html):

 

Not everyone agrees on the amount of damage done by last week's New York Times charter school article, but let's face facts: faulty data plus celebrities plus Wall Street plus damaging status quo talking points equals several steps backwards for the charter school community when splashed across the front page of the Times. What has been lost in the ensuing discussion is that discredited data was used to support a thesis heavily reliant on anti-charter sentiment, and that the article did not once define what a charter school is or that they are by their very nature held accountable for success and closed when they do not live up to their benchmarks. Rather than solely cover "a crowded clique of alpha girls and boys", hedge fund financiers and "a billionaires club of philanthropists", a Times reporter influenced by sound research could have brought to light the reality that in spite of inequitable funding and a lack of facilities, charters continue to draw hundreds of thousands of families to waiting lists and raise the achievement of students in even the harshest urban environments.