...and gets nailed for it by blogger Mike Antonucci of Intercepts.
Antonucci kindly provides the link to the letter written Tuesday and published on "Inside CFT," an on-line information service of the California Federation of Teachers.
Under the parent trigger (or lynch mob provision) if 50% of the parents at a school or feeder schools of a low performing school sign a petition, the school board must hold a hearing to accept that petition or provide an alternative governance change, which could include closing the school, turning it into a charter school, or reconstituting the school.
Al Sharpton's National Action Network, represented by president of the LA chapter, The Rev. K. W. Tulloss, demanded an immediate public apology for the use of the phrase "lynch mob," but, according to Joe Garofoli's column in SFGate, "one wasn't coming Wednesday when we talked to CFT president Marty Hittelman" (at left).
Hittelman, instead, replied:
"What's a lynch mob? It's when a bunch of angry citizens get together and without any study they decide to lynch somebody. And in this case, they're going to lynch their school...basically what they're doing is lynching the school and all the teachers who will be fired and all the kids who will have to go to a different school...I believe the victims [of the parent trigger provision] will be predominantly people of color. They will be the ones who will be given the false hope. They'll be told that they'll be able to go to any school..."
We agree with Mike Antonucci, who writes:
...Hittelman's remarks are an insult to any public school parents with an interest in how their schools operate. They are also an insult to anyone who ever faced an actual lynch mob. Shame on him.
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