Is This Rowback? Or, Does Samuel Freedman Just Think For Himself?

In today’s New York Times emerging national treasure Samuel Freedman takes a look at the charter school flap that seems to implicitly note that the way the Times covered it was, well, tendentious and led to a polarizing rather than illuminating debate. Paging Mr. Okrent. Freedman’s piece, a thoughtful must-read, makes the answer to the above question pretty obvious. The NYT has found gold here. It’s great that this prominent education news analysis column has a voice, Freedman’s voice, however, is conveniently backed up by evidence…

Also — There is a full-page ad in today’s NYT about all this. Mostly it’s the usual suspects (plus a Nobel laureate who is not Friedman) but Paul Hill and Mary Beth Celio are on there, too, lending extra heft in the non-Kool-Aid drinking department. Loveless too, another non-imbiber.