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Charter School Firm Attacks Online Criticism

Posted by timothy on from the so-here's-some-more dept.

Lane writes "News-Press.com reports that 'Charter Schools USA is threatening legal action against parents who use an Internet discussion board to air grievances about Gateway Charter.'" This despite comments which the parents say are based on the public record, and posted anonymously.

10 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. So much for freedom of speech by jnmontario · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Another great example of somebody with expensive lawyers telling (read: threatening) the average person what they can do or think. Yay America.

    1. Re:So much for freedom of speech by karmaflux · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Listen closely: this has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
      See anything in there mentioning that you're allowed to lie about a company in order to defame it and damage its business?

      Looking at some of the comments on that site, I can see why CSUSA thinks they have a case. Most of the worst posts have now been deleted, but the parents were in there accusing teachers of all kinds of horrible crimes, as well as CSUSA of condoning them.

      If CSUSA takes Reigelman to court and successfully proves that the parents were falsely defaming CSUSA on that website, then it is an open and shut case of libel, which is against the law.

      You're so worried about "freedom of speech" -- a concept which you seem not to understand -- but you seem to have forgotten all about "due process of law."
      --

      REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.

    2. Re:So much for freedom of speech by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Charter schools aren't just any corporation. They receive taxpayer money to do a job usually performed by government bodies (public schools) and are therefore acting as an arm of government. So yeah, I'd say this is a First Amendment issue.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  2. Bad move by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Honestly, i couldn't have found a worse course of action to take by that organization, to dig their own grave. First they only had to deal with 65 parents, now its in the press. Talk about bad PR.

    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
  3. Are you kidding? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They'll get invited on morning shows, they'll hire a professional public speaker, and they'll stay on message, which will include God/Jesus. Now is the time to buy stock, not short it.

  4. Money to blow... by Hexzero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sometimes media attention and a little /.ing is all it takes for a travesty to come to the mainstream. A charter school that wastes its time and financial resources on a lawsuite that can be considered frivoulous at best, should not be recieving state and gov't funds. Just another crap use for the joke the gov't calls no child left behind. Yeah, I am sure the funds are not connected. ERate is that perfect.... How much is a retainer for a medium-sized firm? Lets deduct that from the per head dollar amount the school gets from the state. Could that money have been used more efficiently? Probably... Perhaps we can get the government involved next. Senate hearings on closing the website down... Sounds like a viable option in todays government...

  5. That's the great thing about privatization by smchris · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Accountability!

    Oh? Never mind.

  6. Re:difficult to deal with by notque · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This will be their downfall. In the end, people will remember Charter Schools USA as "difficult to deal with" and not as a good place to send their child to.

    Sad.

    It's only sad if they are not difficult to deal with, which from the message board it would seem they are.

    I would think the administration would want to deal with their concerns head on. If they are wrong on the message board, that would easily be addressed at a PTO meeting.

    Which CSU has canceled until the end of the School year.

    Seems pretty difficult to deal with to me.

    --
    http://use.perl.org
  7. Right... by Rev.LoveJoy · · Score: 3, Insightful
    CNN clearly never does this.

    -- RLJ

  8. Re:Charter Schools USA, 20 second judgement by kfg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, if you read the mission statement you'll find the school itself is the product, so the poor kids don't even have that going for them.

    The kids are the natural resource. Have you seen how they handle natural resources?

    KFG