Quinta Brunson responds to critic in spat over charter schools: ‘You’re wrong and bad at research’

Abbott Elementary creator and West Philly native Quinta Brunson set the record straight Thursday after an education executive criticized her for attending charter schools in her youth, only to target them later in her hit ABC comedy.

Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform and director of the Yass Foundation for Education, wrote in a tweet Thursday that Brunson “attended charter schools her entire education.” The tweet came the day after the airing of an episode of Abbott Elementary in which the show’s characters band together to keep the fictional Willard R. Abbott Elementary School from being turned into a charter school.

“She reportedly loved it at the time, heaped praise on it. Once upon a time,” Allen wrote. “Guess money talks.”

Brunson quickly fired back, saying in a response that Allen is “wrong and bad at research.” Brunson added that she attended a charter high school but went to a public elementary school that later became a charter school “over a decade after I left.”

Additionally, the charter high school she attended has since closed, “which happens to charters often,” Brunson said.

“Loving something doesn’t mean it can’t be critiqued,” Brunson added in another tweet. “Thanks for watching the show.”

Brunson attended what is now known as Mastery Harrity Charter School when it was still run by the Philadelphia School District. Now run by the Mastery Charter network, the school remains open to children who live within its attendance zone.

For high school, Brunson attended the Charter High School of Art and Design, or CHAD, which has since closed. In a thread responding to Brunson, Allen wrote that the school “closed because the district didn’t consider how deficient the education of the students coming in was and how much remediation and time was needed for them to recover.”

Allen also pointed out that Brunson and the Abbott Elementary crew partnered with Scholastic last year to donate books to teachers and students at Mastery Harrity Charter as part of a free book fair. The school educates more than 800 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, The Inquirer reported last year.

This is not the first spat Allen has had with Brunson on Twitter. Earlier this month, Allen took offense after an episode of Abbott aired in which the teachers began worrying that a charter school operator in the show could take over their school. Actress Sheryl Lee Ralph’s character, Barbara Howard, says in the show that charters “take our funding, not to mention the private money from wealthy donors with ulterior motives.”

Twitter users linked the line to Jeff Yass, Pennsylvania’s richest man, who has spent millions of dollars in support of charter schools and political action committees that share his goals, The Inquirer previously reported.

“It’s pathetic when fewer than 20% of Philadelphia students can even read, write or spell at grade level that there’s a show on television that has the nerve to criticize the schools that succeed, and the people that help them,” Allen tweeted in response. “This has TEACHERS UNION written all over it.”

In an email to The Inquirer, Allen added that the line was a “gratuitous slap against people with wealth” and that it wasn’t the first “hollow, evidence-lacking shot at charter schools.”

Abbott Elementary is currently preparing to wrap up its second season this spring, with a third season on the way. In May, Brunson will appear in Philly to speak at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education commencement.