Charter schools have truly arrived.

The teacher unions attack them.

Elected officials attack them.

Now, the television series, "Law & Order," in its twentieth year, attacks charters during the new episode aired Monday evening.

Law & Order's executive producer, Dick Wolf, is getting more shrill with each season, using his show for political attacks and cementing stereotypes. Charter schools are now in his cross-hairs, with claims aired last night that charter schools take the smart kids, have more resources, and leave the "stupid" kids in the district schools. And, yes, the bullying prosecutor threatens a district school principal (portrayed by actress Debra Winger, whose career peaked in the early 1980s) that if she didn't cooperate, the mayor and chancellor will (paraphrasing) "break up your school into six charter schools."

In fact, charter schools are so bad, so unfair, that Law & Order portrays a bunch of district school students killing a charter school student. Imagine that, those poor district kids were treated so unfairly; why, they were provoked to murder!

Too bad Dick Wolf falls for such establishment nonsense, and spreads it on the airwaves. He used to be more subtle, and clever. Oh, for the Law & Order days of Jerry Orbach and Steven Hill - I'm sticking to the reruns.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter.com/PeterMurphy26
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