Maine to Duncan: Take Your Bribes and Shove It

The Dunc is finding his big corporate charter promo running into more and more people who still care about making their public schools better, rather than turning them into cheap, corporate charters run by corrupt CEO know-nothings. From the Kennebec Journal:

States such as Maine that don't allow charter schools are putting themselves at a "competitive disadvantage," the country's top education official said Monday.

. . . .Charter schools are free from many of the restrictions governing locally funded public schools. Maine's proposal would have allowed local school boards and universities with education programs to authorize the schools. The school boards and universities would have also had the power to revoke a charter school operator's permission to run a school.

Critics of charter schools in the Legislature said a new set of schools would divert too many resources away from local districts at a time when they're struggling to make ends meet.

Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, said during debate that a vote against charter schools was a vote of confidence in Maine public schools.

"It's time for us to put confidence back to the schools that we already have here," he said Thursday. . . .