Charter Schools and More

This week NC Education Alliance Director Lindalyn Kakadelis stopped in Holly Springs for remarks to the local Rotary Club about school choice and the opportunity of charter schools. She also distributed NCEA’s charter school report. Then it was back to Charlotte, where on Thursday, Mike Collins interviewed her on WFAE radio, the area’s NPR station. The charter schools tour continues to attract media attention at most stops. When Kakadelis spoke recently at Thomas Jefferson Classical Academy, it resulted in a front-page story in Forest City’s Daily Courier. The paper highlighted this quote from Kakadelis as a bold graphic with its story: “Choice would help improve all schools, not just in (the) private (sector), but in the public school sector.” Kakadelis’ perspective on testing and achievement, as well as on school choice, is featured in the new issue of Carolina Youth Alliance magazine, which covers issues of law, education and health as they relate to young people in North and South Carolina. Meantime, the new issue of MetroMagazine also contains a George Leef book review of “The War Against Excellence” by Cheri Pierson Yecke. Leef writes that Yecke’s book is one of several that expose “the deplorable truth about government schools.” He covers the author’s five main areas of concern about the influence of progressive educators, particularly in middle schools. The areas of concerns included the belief in the equality of educational outcomes, in questioning the value of individualism, in supremacy of the group over the individual, that advanced students should help others at the expense of their own needs, and that competition should be eliminated.