By John Thompson.

The Education Post supposedly seeks a bluster-free conversation to elevate the voices of students, parents, and teachers. Its Director of Outreach, Chris Stewart, does so by asserting that those who disagree with him are “perhaps” racists. In “Condoleeza Rice is the Wrong Messenger with the Right Message,” Stewart does a little fancy footwork as he makes it clear that he equates disagreement over the best ways to improve schools with racism.

Condoleeza Rice recently wrote:

Anybody who isn’t in favor of school choice, anybody who isn’t in favor of educational reform, anybody who defends the status quo in the educational system, that’s racist to me.

Stewart replies that Rice’s sweeping charge sounds “bombastic,” but it “rings true to my experience with opponents of school reform and school choice.”

Of course, nobody defends the education status quo; the issue is whether competition-driven policies, high-stakes testing, and other corporate reforms are the way to improve schools serving poor children of color. We teachers question whether it makes sense to increase segregation, to use the stress of testing to overcome the stress of poverty, and to impose nonstop test prep in order to end the achievement gap.  But, Stewart charges that people who oppose his vision of reform are “all too willing to assign black children to inferior schools that would never be acceptable for white students.”

Stewart seems to equate opposition to the Vergara lawsuit, which would strike down the rights of teachers, with racism. He writes,

I can’t think of any group working harder in capital houses nationwide to prevent urban students in poverty from having access to higher quality teachers and better schools than teachers unions and their liberal allies.

Stewart acknowledges that racism is “a beastly term that stops conversation.” He then asks and answers, “Shouldn’t we just chalk this up to policy disputes, not racism?”

“Perhaps.”

So, perhaps we teachers who want to fix, not close, neighborhood schools are racist or perhaps we are not. Perhaps, Stewart claims, we are “racist-ish.”

But, lest the full venom of Stewart’s teacher-bashing be misunderstood, he charges educators who oppose his opinions on charters with racial “redlining.” He concludes that teachers who disagree with him seek the “crowding (of) black children into public schools no one would want for white children.”

Of course, Stewart has it backwards. It is his competition-driven reforms that have increased segregation, dumping the most vulnerable students into schools serving even greater concentrations of kids from generational poverty and who have endured extreme trauma. I don’t believe Stewart, the Education Post and other market-driven reformers intended to harm poor students of color. Perhaps because of their lack of knowledge of urban schools, they inadvertently and heedlessly created “Neo-Plessyism.”

I am saddened that the Education Post has already embraced gutter politics, using one of the worst possible slanders against teachers. I even tried to offer a guest post, hoping to tone down venomous edu-politics. The Post’s Peter Cunningham criticized Rice’s blanket condemnation of people who have different opinions regarding school improvement.. He says he thinks that people who oppose reforms are wrong, but not racist. I have no problem with Cunningham’s post. But, I cannot see how he would not repudiate Stewart’s version of challenging the integrity of opponents. How can Cunningham distance himself from the mudslinging of Rice and Stewart, and still offer Stewart a space for his outrageous assaults?

I also admit that my first response to Stewart was anger – taking it personally when he “perhaps” charged my union, my colleagues, and me with racism. But, the worst part of Stewart’s hateful diatribe is its blunderbuss nature. He brazenly paints the vast majority of teachers as racists. In doing so, the Education Post shows that too many reformers remained wedded to the politics of destruction.

What do you think? Couldn’t the Education Post have found a Director of Outreach who would not scrape the gutter in arguing against educators who disagree with them? Why would an organization claiming to advance education conversations condemn those who disagree as racists? Will it retract Stewart’s post? Will they apologize? Will they find a spokesperson who is less mean-spirited?