School Closure Debate in Baltimore Gets Nasty

The new Education Week came in the mail yesterday. There's an interesting article in it about school closures, with a couple of pictures that really catch the eye. The first:



The caption in Edweek reads, "Colby McLean, left, and Keyona Turner hold signs in favor of Harbor City West High, which is slated to be closed."

The part that gets me here is the language on the sign the lady is holding: BCPS: Facilities Solution or The Final Solution

Is she really equating the closing of a high school with Eichmann's Final Solution, which lead to the death of millions of Jews in Nazi Germany? If we can invoke Godwin's Law here in the real world, Ms. Turner just lost her case. If she's a student at the school, her social studies and history teachers should be hanging their heads in shame.

In the equally overwraught category, picture #2, which has been yanked off of Edweek's webite. Here the caption read, "A student lies on the sidewalk during a March 1 rally to protest the planned closure of six schools in Baltimore. The students chanted "No education, no life," and demanded that class sizes be reduced to 20 students or fewer before any schools are closed." —Courtesy of Algerina Perna/The Sun

You can read the entire Education week article here ($).