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By Tiffany Silgas Akleh, Progress Michigan intern

Last week, the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP) tweeted a meme comparing George Wallace, the racist governor who blocked integration in the Alabama public schools to Mike Flanagan, the Superintendent of Public Instruction who is calling on charter school authorizers to hold charter schools accountable.

GLEP was called out for their tweet by multiple organizations including Progress Michigan. GLEP retreated and deleted the tweet.

However, they did not delete the prior tweets defending their comparison. Let’s take a look at each tweet and have some fun with their logic.

Really? Allowing for-profit schools to operate without proper oversight is the civil rights issue of our generation? Not equal pay for equal work, marriage equality, income inequality or the continued defunding of education?

Public schools should be high performing, competitive schools that prepare students for success. They should operate with accountability and transparency. Using race to defend their original race-baiting tweet is at best odd.

This one irritates me, because George Wallace blocked the integration of black and white students, while Flanagan is simply trying to hold for-profit charter schools accountable. The two are not even close to the same level.

GLEP should apologize for blocking real accountability instead of just retracting a tweet.

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