Stupid Tweets from Seattle Times Opinion

I subscribe to the Seattle Times Opinion Twitter feed so I get to see every stupid thing they write on it.



Here are some recent tweets from them:

• The top one is innocuous.
• The second one says that charter schools must hold themselves accountable and that not doing this has been a problem with traditional public schools. Of course, with the new report from NACSA we now know that it has been just as much of a problem with charters. So why suggest it's just a problem for public schools? The story here isn't that it's a "problem" with public schools but that it is a bigger problem with charter schools.
• The third one made me laugh. They write: "It's called accountability", when, in fact, the failure to do it has been a huge lack of accountability. The Times essentially gives charter schools credit for doing exactly what they have refused to do - hold themselves accountable in this way.
• The fourth one is the really funny one. They actually cite the section in the law, but they get the percentage wrong. I-1240 says the bottom quartile - that's the bottom 25%, not the bottom 20%. This is funny to me. Also, it's not required as their tweet suggests. The authorizer can decide that there are exceptional circumstances and exempt the school from the mandatory closure.

So three tweets from the Seattle Times about charter schools and they simply have the facts wrong or try to spin the story to mean the exact opposite of what it really means. Amazing!