The Factoid World of Michael Goodwin of the New York Post

I buy two newspapers on Sunday. The Daily News, I read in the car while my son is in Sunday School and The Times to read throughout the day. The Post, except for Phil Mushnick is a waste of my time.

But this past Sunday I was able to read a free copy of the Post. I forgot where I was but I came across Michael Goodwin's column with a big headline proclaiming, "The False and Ridiculous Claims Against Charter Schools." OK, I have time to waste and in need of a good giggle, so I said to myself, "Why not?" and read.

I have to admit, Goodwin piqued my interest quite a bit as a good writer must. I started to read with bated breath and found the first three paragraphs or so fascinating;

Say anything nice about charter schools, and you are sure to get letters full of rage, false charges and praise for unions. The attacks, often from teachers, follow a format that appears to be scripted by labor bosses and echo the class-warfare bile of Mayor de Blasio.

To wit, charters succeed because they weed out problem students, they discriminate against those with disabilities, and their operators, especially Eva Moskowitz, got special favors from the previous mayor.

Ergo, everything charters achieve is suspect and their methods won’t work on a broad scale.

WHOA! Some awesome writing there! His writing puts me to shame. But the way he grabbed me and brought me in was surely the work of someone bordering on the level of genius, if not a super genius. What was I to read next?

Surely, he would refute the statements and facts that people throw out there against charters. I said to myself, "Self, be prepared to be blown away by Michael Goodwin. Being a newspaper columinst  he must have a multitude of folders, paperwork, and Power Point presentations to completely refute and p3wn the anti-charter folks."

I was prepared to join the Dark Side. I was ready to know that all that I have known is no more and to know what I did not know and see that new knowledge as fact.

Goodwin shared part of a letter he received from a "misguided fourth grade teacher;"

“Charter schools claim to educate students with disabilities but those disabilities are mild, while the public schools are serving ­every child.”

OK, a little bit off topic. No refutation  as of yet, but perhaps Goodwin is teasing the reader to the big build up I said to myself.

Goodwin goes on...The claim is false and the comparisons to traditional schools wildly misleading, but the repetition of similar charges in letter after letter is revealing.

Yeah, go for it Goodwin, let it all out. Share with us the facts you have at hand!!! SAY AMEN BROTHER!!!!

He starts to let it out; As I’ve argued, unions and so-called progressive politicians see successful charters as an existential threat, and so they must be stopped, facts and ­innocent children be damned.

The threat is to union jobs, but more broadly, to the equality ideology that animates the left wing of the Democratic Party. That ideology is a form of creepy collectivism that favors mediocrity for all over excellence for some.

OK, more opinion than fact but he must be going somewhere, no? 

Here, Goodwin chooses the old stand by, the ad hominen attack; “Do you know what else charter school children and parents have, motivation, otherwise they wouldn’t be there, they would not have undergone the process to get in,” writes the grammatically challenged educator. “Public schools serve every child, even those whose parents sadly don’t even care enough to bathe or feed them.”

I'm not going to share the rest of the teacher's letter to Goodwin. Goodwin never shared any specifics of this teacher. With the journalistic track record of the Post and News Corp. how can one be sure of anything?

But one thing is certain, Goodwin does back up with facts the title of his column. Nowhere in no way does he show any statistics refuting any single solitary claim that he says the anti-charter movement makes.

This was a golden opportunity for Goodwin to at the very least plant a seed of doubt into reader's minds. Instead what he has done is show just how low he and the New York Post will sink in doing everything possible to defile and debase De Blasio and to show that the Post is nothing more than a sock puppet for Eva Moskowitz, Governor Andy, and the entire deform movement.

Yes, we know that a newspaper columnist shares his opinion. But by looking at his headline and the first three paragraphs one assumes that there must be some facts that Goodwin will share. Instead he mocks someone using a strawman argument. This column is pure bait and switch and an ode to the deformers of New York City.

Will what Goodwin wrote past muster with the editor/faculty adviser of an elementary newspaper?

This is what has happened to journalism in this country. A few media companies own almost all the outlets of dissemination and are easily bought off to keep their licenses and their access.

Goodwin is pathetic.