That was weird. Today, Delawareonline published an opinion piece by Salome Thomas-El, the leader of Thomas Edison Charter School and three other people. The big problem is Thomas-El didn’t write any such letter. Did the other three?
The letter was a critique against newly christened Delaware State Education Association President Mike Matthews. With Mike’s Facebook comments taken completely out of context in relation to Governor Carney’s veto of HS1 for House Bill #85, the five-mile radius bill, the piece made it seem like Matthews is anti-charter and wants them all to close. But the true mystery is the addition of Thomas-El as a writer. I posted a comment on their Facebook page to which Thomas-El just responded with this:
Bam! They didn’t wait a full two weeks for Matthews to break in to his new role. But who exactly wrote this letter? If I were Thomas-El, I would be pretty ticked off that he was given top billing in a letter he never even wrote. Not sure how a mistake like that can just happen. That’s pretty major. This is an odd group to begin with, but when one them is fake, that is serious cause for concern. Did Erica Dorsett, Daniel Walker and Cyntiche Deba also contribute to this letter? I’m at the State Board of Education meeting and Walker is sitting a few seats in front of me. I’ll ask him during the next break.
So I guess DelawareCan is just an extension of Rodel & CSN?
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So pretty much if Salome wasn’t involved, the letter was from 3 people associated with DelawareCan. Here is an article from the hockession news about who is in the program. Cyntiche and a student with the same last name as Erica are part of the group.
http://www.hockessincommunitynews.com/news/20170612/delaware-gains-youth-advocacy-council-to-increase-student-voice-in-education-policy
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My question would be what’s the response from TNJ about not fact checking their publication? Followed closely by who DID write the letter?
Pretty sure those are rhetorical questions. Pride goeth before the fall, anonymous nonsense-writer.
Thanks for this article, Kevin. Did you get an answer from Mr. Walker?
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He claimed there was some type of misunderstanding with the other party. Clearly he did not have any part in this letter. Bizarre!
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I’m beyond disgusted that someone would pen a nasty letter like this, taking comments well out of context, and attribute it to people who didn’t write it. Who DOES that? Integrity is sorely lacking. Ugh. I’m really sick about this. That’s some middle school bullying shit right there. Grow up.
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This doesn’t surprise me at all. I expect many attempts by TeenSharp/DelawareCan to take down public schools, and those associated with them, in support of charters. It’s pretty crazy that they tried to use another persons name to add credibility to the letter.
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You think it was them? Wow.
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Three of the four writers are associated with them in some way and the fourth said he didn’t write it. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to say this. I asked Daniel Walker about this. He claimed it was a misunderstanding.
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Daniel works for Delaware CAN.
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Isn’t Atnre Alleyne involved with them? I would NEVER have expected he would be involved in falsifying an op ed like that. Wow.
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