Padded Cell a Win-Win for KIPP

Sure it's barbaric to keep young children in padded cells. It's clearly a cruel way to treat a child, and it's very tough to see how that is not an abject violation of Chancellor's Regulations against corporal punishment and abuse. Of course, rules are for the little people. Were a UFT teacher to toss a kid in a padded cell, you'd better believe there'd be an investigation, and very likely a removal from the classroom.

But KIPP says they're gonna just keep on tossing kids into padded cells. If they can be believed, which given their ridiculous sense of priorities, I highly doubt, they've only tossed three kids into the padded cell so far. If, in fact, they've only used it three times, why on earth do they even need it? But let's say they're right.

It appears two of the three kids who they admit to placing in the cell are leaving their venerable institution. This means they're headed for public schools. So, basically, all KIPP needs to do to get rid of kids who are troublesome, or kids who don't get scores that make them look good, is to toss them into the handy padded cell. Then they'll be traumatized, their parents will pull them out, and the kids will go to public schools.

If there are problems with the kids, the papers can blame those awful unionized teachers who do nothing but complain. Not only is the KIPP school easier to manage, but whatever problems those kids have can be blamed on the public schools.

Legal expert Campbell Brown is all over the cases of teachers who've been vindicated, some of whom should never have faced charges in the first place. And yet, despite her feigned outrage over cases about which she knows little or nothing, she's spoken not a word about this. Where is her mysterious Transparency Project.

E4E and Students First and all the Astroturfers were out in force the other night, supporting Common Core, a program that's never been field tested anywhere. They were doing cartwheels in support of rating teachers via junk science, and even managed to get almost every speaking spot at King's forum the other night.

Yet they're also completely silent about this outrageous treatment of young children by a charter chain school. Public school teachers would never treat children like this. And never doubt for one moment who really places children first.

It is us, the parents and teachers of public school children, and we dedicate our lives to these kids. We don't take money from Bill Gates. We just love them. That's why we want the same treatment for our kids that John King buys for his, over at the Montessori school.