Conor P. Williams has a thoughtful article on “How Campbell Brown Is Getting the Same Treatment Michelle Rhee Got.” At one point he reflects on his own experience as an education writer:

Sometimes I write things like “Some charter schools, under some circumstances, are performing especially well.” When I write these sorts of things, my inbox, my Twitter mentions, and (occasionally) my phone spontaneously, simultaneously ignite. I get accused of hating teachers, teachers unions, and (a few times) white people. I get told that I’m a secret agent for Pearson, Bill Gates, the United Nations, and sometimes even the Muslim Brotherhood (really. No—REALLY). This isn’t occasional. It happens every time I write anything vaguely favorable about reform efforts, even when it’s mixed with criticism.
Sometimes, however, I write things like “Charter schools are far less likely to fix American education than their supporters think.” When I write things like this, I hear from reformers who question the merits of my arguments. No one impugns my character or my motives. No one accuses me of racial bias. No one tells me that I’m too handsome to be taken seriously (though, to be fair, that particular line of ad hominem hasn’t shown up in response to anything that I’ve written).
I think that this rhetorical imbalance reveals something about the current state of intellectual and political momentum in education.