To the Editor:

In the publicity campaign being conducted by Princeton Charter School supporters, I am dismayed to see recurring tactics: discrediting of ample public data showing that PCS is segregated, saddling of taxpayers with a financially draining and inefficient burden; diverting public attention by manufacturing off-base or flatly false counter-accusations; and attacking those who support our public schools. These strategies are sadly similar to those employed by the current administration in Washington. Yet these offensive tactics were publicly lauded by the PCS trustees’ chairman at a recent, lavish PCS fundraising gala.

We are all friends with PCS parents. Surely these calculated conspiracy theories, personal attacks, and especially, reprehensible denigration of public school children aren’t something that our fair-minded PCS friends condone. Anyone can see that they only compound the damage to the Charter School’s reputation following the widely-opposed expansion. I hope that PCS parents and the other trustees of the Princeton Charter School will publicly disavow rather than encourage them. I also urge the PCS trustees to do the right thing for our entire community and unilaterally stay or significantly reduce the number of seats by which PCS will expand. The trustees can do this without state approval.

The only silver lining to this undemocratic, secretly-planned PCS expansion is that thousands of Princeton residents are now keenly aware that New Jersey’s charter school law is broken. As a founding member of Save Our Schools New Jersey (SOSNJ), I can attest that this always has been the position of our organization regarding charter schools. SOSNJ is not “anti-charter;” since its founding in 2010 in response to the Christie administration’s devastating school aid cuts, SOSNJ’s position on charter schools has been straightforward: the state law should be amended to require local, democratic approval of new charter schools or expansions, and greater transparency and public accountability for existing charter schools.

SOSNJ simply seeks basic democratic control for communities and transparency for charter schools. That certain Princeton Charter School leaders see these fundamentally fair tenets as an existential threat to their school is disturbing and very revealing.

Audrey Chen

Linwood Circle