By Nat Morton

Well, you try to be nice.

I’ll need to amend, perhaps even withdraw, the kind words I said about Diane Ravitch at the beginning of my last blog entry. The conversation I described in that post continued on Diane’s blog and, quite frankly, she lost control and let the mask slip.

In response to a comment I made about how important I believe accountability is in public education (a common theme of my blog), Diane Ravitch — Historian, Research Professor, former holder of the Brown Chair in Education Studies at the Brookings Institution, and author of 14 books — actually wished my children ill out of spite:

There’s just something about charters that brings out the worst emotions in the unionist crowd.

Now, I don’t believe Diane really wishes my children harm, but it’s clear that she’s gotten both petty and rude out of a sense of frustration.  It’s been my observation that this is what people do when they’re committed to an idea and when that commitment is not based on a rational assessment of the facts at hand.  Sooner or later they’re confronted with facts that do not fit, and they begin to realize at some level they are not acting rationally. But instead of questioning their own ideas, a sure sign of maturity, they simply refuse to accept the possibility of there being a flaw in their argument. The stress from this cognitive dissonance leads to anger.  The anger results in a loss of perspective.  The loss of perspective leads to saying something stupid like hoping someone’s child gets a crummy public education.

(By the way, if by chance you ever do read this page, Diane, please know that charter student #1 in the Morton household has recently enrolled in one of the county’s top engineering colleges — with a merit scholarship.  Chew on that.)

It is also worth noting that as of this date it would appear my 9/27 12:21pm reply to Diane’s slap at my kids (included in the image above) did not make it past the “awaiting moderation” stage.  Gee, I wonder who the moderator is?

Needless to say I’m not planning on leaving more comments on Diane’s website in the future.  Worse than not allowing comments, like so many anti-charter blogs do, she filters the commentary giving the appearance of openness but censoring perfectly rational comments that put her in a bad light.  IMO, that is a particularly loathsome form of intellectual dishonesty.

Get the facts.  Lift the cap.  Please vote “YES” on Question 2 this November.  Don’t let ideologues block your child’s access to the school you think is best for them.

This post originally ran here.