Post Pushes its Business Line in Editorial

In an editorial today, the Post bemoaned the lack of charter schools in Montgomery County and in Maryland, blaming “a bad state law that puts all the power over whether there should be school choice in the hands of local school officials.” The editorial was then picked up in the Post's Maryland Politics blog, giving it double exposure.

Once again, the Post has failed to disclose to its readers that Post subsidiary Kaplan, Inc. is an operator of private schools and charter schools.

According to the last Washington Post Company annual report, Kaplan Virtual Education (KVE) “operates charter and private virtual schools that offer online instruction to students in grades 6 through 12. KVE also provides instructors and curriculum and manages virtual schools for 19 school districts throughout the U.S. At year-end 2009, KVE was providing courses to approximately 3,850 students.” The division to which KVE belongs earned $124 million in revenue last year. How much of that came from private schools and charter schools?

However one feels about charter schools, the fact that the Post actually makes money by operating them is a relevant fact that it should - at minimum - disclose in every editorial it writes promoting them. The fact that it never has arouses suspicion that the Post is using its editorials to make money for its own private schooling business.