RI reporter tells student organizer that parents critical of student walk-out are"fascists"

And then doubles and triples down on Twitter

A local reporter, podcast host and producer at WPRO defamed parents today during a student walkout in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Last night, Bill Bartholomew engaged with parents on Twitter about the upcoming walkouts. He indicated that he supported the walk-outs. The parents in the online conversation had a different opinion. No big deal, right?

Today Bartholomew attended the walkout and subsequent rally and started a conversation with a student organizer at the protest. Bartholomew described the parents he had engaged with last night and then asked, “what’s your message to these fascist parents who are making these comments?”

So what led him to conclude that we are fascists?

While Bartholomew expressed certainty that the event was student organized, I and others indicated that we were skeptical because of what he have learned about past walkouts. If I was a betting woman, I’d bet that there was adult involvement in the organization of this event, along with a lot of student initiative. Both things can be true and usually are. The student organizer called a sitting senator to the stage during the rally so it strains credulity that she had no involvement before walking up to the stage.

Bill Bartholomew @BillBartholomew

walkout planned at 3 Pawtucket schools tomorrow "in protest of the failures of people in power to protect our peers and provide the resources necessary to keep us safe in school"

Bill Bartholomew @BillBartholomew

@TheStonesEG its student organized

Laurie @laurieinri

@lborgprojocom @BillBartholomew I spoke with the Super's office of the Pawtucket SD this morning. No parental permission slips for this event. No plan for school admin to supervise the kids roaming the city streets. Parents may receive a robo-call if their kids go missing. Reporters glamorize cutting class.

One mom, a longtime dyslexia advocate who has been fighting for evidence based reading instruction in RI schools for years, was outraged that Bartholomew and others would advocate for a walk-out during the school day in a district with such low reading proficiency. She shared the most recent reading data and indicated that most of the students in Pawtucket are not fully literate. That is a fact. 82% of students are not proficient in reading and writing. (In math, 92% of students are not proficient.)

Jody Stone @TheStonesEG

@BillBartholomew Walkout? No! If they care about these kids they’d keep them IN SCHOOL! 93% of Students in Pawtucket are NOT proficient in Math and 83% aren’t proficient in reading. Stop USING the children and START EDUCATING THEM.

Bartholomew didn’t think literacy rates were relevant.

Bill Bartholomew @BillBartholomew

@esanzi @TheStonesEG Their literacy ability should not impact their ability to organize and advocate for themselves.

Ok, so they disagree. Who cares?

In his conversation with the student at the rally, he characterized the parents who disagree with him as being from “rural areas” and specifically referred to the parent group Parents United RI (though he got the name wrong). While it’s true that the founder of that group is from a rural part of the state, it is not remotely true that all of its members are.

As word of the “fascist parents” comment spread this afternoon, and parents subsequently called him out for it, Bartholomew doubled and tripled down on Twitter in his hyperbolic rhetoric .

Perhaps today’s episode with a local media figure calling parents “fascists” will help people to better understand why so many parents feel that so much of the media coverage of their concerns the past two years has been unfair, dismissive and even hostile.

Reasonable people can disagree and opposition to a student walk-out during the school day, or skepticism about who organized it, doesn’t make someone a fascist.

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I have personally long believed that if students walk-out of school because they care deeply about a cause, there should be a disciplinary consequence for cutting classes. Civil disobedience requires sacrifice. Anything else is just a field trip.

I wrote about it here in 2018.