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Sit in on a Metro Nashville School Board meeting or turn to any Tennessean article that mentions education, and you’ll hear quite a bit of charter school bashing. If you only listened to certain school board members, you would think that charters are the spawn of Satan himself. Too bad that when the results come out, it’s traditional public schools that should be sent to the principal’s office for bad behavior. A recent report shows that the number of “priority schools”—or those performing so poorly that they are subject to being taken over by the state, and potentially converted to charter schools—has nearly tripled. There are now 15 low-performing schools in Nashville, up from six last year, and none of which are those despised charter schools. The problem is that when you point your finger at someone, the other three are always pointing back at you. Our anti-charter school board members need to end their tirade and do a bit of housekeeping. Casting blame on the wrong party, especially the schools that are consistently out-performing their peers, does nothing to better educate our children. In fact, it appears it’s only made things worse. -Justin Owen