Another Legal Threat Against Speech

A Florida newspaper is reporting legal threats against parents who've been criticizing a charter school company and its operations in this forum. The name of the company is Charter Schools USA.

I hope the parents in the community remove any actually defamatory statements, if there are any (and the parents deny that there are). According to the news story, the company wouldn't specify which postings it found objectionable.

But I hope the parents will aggressively defend their right to be critical of a school administration that cancels PTO meetings, among other acts that sound pretty arrogant from a distance. And I hope they get help in that defense from free-speech defenders in the legal community.

Here, meanwhile, is the almost certain outcome in the wider Web community. Many people will now a) link to the story and the online forum; and b) mention the name of the company. (The story was just Slashdotted, which means it's going to get huge play online.)

One result? Before long, if you type "Charter Schools USA" into your favorite search engine, that news story -- and the forum, assuming it stays online, along with some withering commentary about the company -- will be near the top of the rankings. One suspects this will be a consequence that Charter Schools USA did not foresee.

Comments

[Alex Krupp]

As is traditional every time schooling is mentioned on the internet, allow me to link to John Taylor Gatto's essay and book on public schooling:

http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com

Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education, has been dubbed the official book of the Internet. At least read the short essay (the first link) if you haven't already. Of course the first edition of the book is available for free online on his homepage.

The problem with charter schools is they will naturally provide as bad an education as they can get away with. The only way there will ever be enough data about each school for parents to make an informed decision is for government is regulate the hell out of them. And if government regulates the hell out of them, they aren't really that much different than the 'free' public school system that we already have.

[syntax_L]

I visited the forum and saw what is prevalent on most forums; accusations, flames, personal attacks, and endless bickering. Anyone that challenged the premises of the complaints are shouted down. It was not worth the time to visit the forum.