This is an excellent essay at Medium that I learned about from Peter Greene of Curmudgucation. I copy and paste it in its entirety in case you don’t like signing into Medium.
Why New Educators Resent “Reformers”
Let’s consider why so many young educators today are in open rebellion.
How did we lose patience with politicians and policymakers who dominated nearly every education reform debate for more than a generation?
Recall first that both political parties called us “a nation at risk,” fretted endlessly that we “leave no child behind,” and required us to compete in their “race to the top.”
They told us our problems could be solved if we “teach for America,” introduce “disruptive technology,” and ditch the textbook to become “real world,” 21st century, “college and career ready.”
They condemned community public schools for not letting parents “choose,” but promptly…
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Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 
Susan Lee Schwartz
December 3, 2018 at 10:02
It is 2 decades since the cabal that took out the professional teacher from the schools in 15,880 separate SCHOOL SYSTEMS: See my Series Page for 15,880 Districts in 50 States: already divided for conquering. | OpEdNews: https://www.opednews.com/Series/15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html?f=15-880-Districts-in-50-Sta-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-140921-34.html
AND, FYI — in millions of schools, as the unions looked the other way they took the PROFESSIONAL TEACHER -PRACTITIONER teachers OUT. How else could they have done this: http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
…and I was at the time, a celebrated teacher, the NYS Educator of Excellence, and the NYC cohort for Pew’s research on the New Standards Principle’s of LEARNING… THE HARVARD THRID LEVEL RESEARCH.
WITH NO HEARING or any information accusations–THEY invented a GUILTY VERDICT of Corporal punishment’ to remove me from my classroom PRACTICE IN THE SCHOOL that I helped to put on the map — with the highest reading and writing scores in NYC( which is why Harvard came to say; “what is she doing there?” ) Teaching professionals such as I was, HAD TO BE REMOVED if the schools were to fail!
BTW: The research DISAPPEARED, TOO. The 4 principles that every successful teacher uses TO ENABLE & FACILITATE LEARNING! THAT, is the language of the standards seminars that I attended when NYC became the 12th district in the nation, to be in the Pew project….because they wanted ME in the study. In the end, my work was one of 6, of the 20,000 teachers studied, to be sent around the nation with the research. I had facilitated the learning of thinking and writing skills in a curriculum that I wrote and used in a NYC public school!!!
Gates and hi s’common core crap’ needed to remove those of us who knew WHAT LEARNING LOOKED LIKE!
That phrase is CRUCIAL. All the snake oil sold by the ‘reformers, DEPENDS on a citizenry that has no conception of what Learning looks like. People went to school, and they know what ’school’ looks like, from that???
Imagine people going to a doctor and knowing if the procedures he uses are worthwhile, after watching tv doctors. Imagine if hospitals threw the real practitioners out of the hospital and replaced them with novices who did what they were told. People would die.
Well, learning died. That is because we— …the authentic educators. — are gone! (BTW GENUINE and AUTHENTIC were also words I heard every day while I worked with the research teams — who determined that my portfolio assessments were GENUINE: portfolio actually demonstrated what each and every 13 year old student — of the 138 in my seventh grade — could do (skills they had acquired)— and that was without a single test. Their September letters showed how they wrote as the cue form grade 6. Their june letters showed what they could now do, on their way to Grade 8!
The privateers have foisted magic elixirs that make money for them, but do not ENHANCE LEARNING https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
‘They’ ( the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf ) talk about teaching, not LEARNING —— BUT education is ALL about Learning!
They put out the fake news– thepropaganda and lies about those ‘old teachers’ (i.e experienced professionals) whined to be removed from the schools. Thus, here in America they can sell ‘sh*t on a shingle to an ignorant population that will buy ‘expert’ advice; they have now moved to charter schools, and on-line learning.
My son, who is traveling in Europe for year with his young family, tasked his 12 year old son with 2 online courses. One in math, the other in humanities… and discovered the he was not doing his ‘homework.’ LOL! No teacher watching!
My grandson and I are working on his writing, as he reads novels with me, and in his letters to me at GOOGLE DOCS, he talks about what he reads, what he thinks, and what he learns.
Then — face to face on our computers — we read his letters Together — so we can identify mechanical errors that need to be edited, or places that need clarification of details, and he rewrites them. ( last time, our talk about The Book Thief — and his trip to Berlin— lasted for 2 hours!
That conference I did with every child, even though my student population went from 77 to 138.
I also sent letters to parents each week about what I was doin tech week in class, and a ’skills’ sheet with each returned letter (Here is what….name… needs to work on).
Harvard said that it was these CLEAR EXPECTATIONS that matched the first principal of learning… which is why my letter- writing program and my wonderful classroom curricula, WORKED.
THAT is what I did with those 138 kids! That letter writing tool worked. Hopefully, when he turns from his world travels, he will have a portfolio of letter that show he can now write in ways that will be accepted in high school.
THAT, uses cyberspace to bring a teacher and a chid into collaboration. THAT is online learning.
Lloyd Lofthouse
December 3, 2018 at 15:23
Not a cabal … a devil’s coven of demons straight from Dante’s fourth circle of hell, sixth circle, eighth circle, and ninth circle. This coven of demons have served time in every one of those circles.