Timing is everything, or, 'That was then, this is now'

Just when you thought it was safe to read the editorial page again.  From the Greensboro News & Record...

Editorial: No building funds for charter schools

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

(Updated 3:05 am)           

 

"Charter schools are generally a good deal for North Carolina because they offer K-12 educational alternatives and they save taxpayers money (italics Charter Guy's)." 

 

Nice of them to say so, don't you think?  After months of hearing charter schools denounced by the anti-charter crowd as a scheme to 'drain money away from public education' or as 'a luxury we can't afford in these difficult times' at least one major North Carolina paper finally gets the fiscal math right.  Charter Guy thinks this may be the first time that anyone from the anti-charter crowd has publicly acknowledged the fact that charter schools save taxpayer dollars. But you couldn't drag that admission out of them during the debate over Senate Bill 8.   

 

So are the editors of the News & Record getting smarter about charters?  More conscientious in their reporting, perhaps? 

 

Read on...

 

"The legislature could rewrite the law to allow for public funding of charter school buildings, but at what price? Counties are burdened by capital costs already. Forcing them to build charter schools would hurt taxpayers and kill one of the chief benefits these schools provide, namely a less-expensive alternative. (italics Charter Guy's)"

Notice the rhetorical slight-of-hand there?  Yesterday we couldn't possibly afford more charter schools, but today those same schools are so cost-effective we dare not alter their funding scheme, lest we "kill one of the chief benefits these schools provide..."

You can read the whole thing here:  http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/08/08/article/editorial_no_building_funds_for_charter_schools