Americans for Prosperity

It seems like every time I turn around I'm adding new tags to keep track of the lunatic fringes of Puppetshow. Today I had to add Americans for Prosperity to the list, one more ugly face of the hydra that is the multi-million-dollar opinion-manufacturing machine funded by Art Pope.

Why today? Because today, Americans for Prosperity has decided to weigh in against the sane Wake County policy makers who voted to withhold judgment about raising the cap on charter schools.

The issue is a simple one: Government haters want to crush public schools out of existence over the long haul, so that eventually only rich white people will be able to afford an education. In the short term, they want to choke off school funding, thereby reducing traditional public schools to dysfunctional shells. Their plans call for siphoning off money into charter schools.

I personally have a great deal of hope for charter schools, but that hope has not yet been anywhere near fulfilled. I'm aware of NO evidence that charter schools perform any better than public schools ... nor does there appear to be a workable model in place for managing a significant increase in their number.