The Landmark Case Of Us V. Them
Patrick Riccards, CEO of the education advocacy group ConnCAN, has published a short piece on his personal blog in which he decries the “vicious and fact-free attacks” in education debates.
The post lists a bunch of “if/then” statements to illustrate how market-based reform policy positions are attacked on personal grounds, such as, “If one provides philanthropic support to improve public schools, then one must be a profiteer looking to make personal fortunes off public education.” He summarizes the situation with a shot of his own: “Yes, there are no attacks that are too vicious or too devoid of fact for the defenders of the status quo.” What of his fellow reformers? They “simply have to stand and take the attacks and the vitriol, no matter how ridiculous.”
Mr. Riccards is dead right that name-calling, ascription of base motives, and the abuse of empirical evidence are
The post lists a bunch of “if/then” statements to illustrate how market-based reform policy positions are attacked on personal grounds, such as, “If one provides philanthropic support to improve public schools, then one must be a profiteer looking to make personal fortunes off public education.” He summarizes the situation with a shot of his own: “Yes, there are no attacks that are too vicious or too devoid of fact for the defenders of the status quo.” What of his fellow reformers? They “simply have to stand and take the attacks and the vitriol, no matter how ridiculous.”
Mr. Riccards is dead right that name-calling, ascription of base motives, and the abuse of empirical evidence are