Maybe it is just me, but I find myself outraged by education "reformers'" incessant manipulation of language.
"Reform" seldom refers to reform.
"Reform" means privatization.
"Reform" means assaults on the teaching profession.
"Reform" means eliminating teachers' unions, which fight for better salaries and working conditions.
"Reform" means boasting about test scores by schools that have carefully excluded the students who might get low scores.
"Reform" means using test scores to evaluate teachers even though this practice has negative effects on teacher morale and fails to identify better or worse teachers.
"Reform" means stripping teachers of due process rights or any other job security.
"Reform" means that schools should operate for-profit and that private corporations should be encouraged to profit from school spending.
"Reform" means acceptance of privately managed schools that operate without accountability or transparency.
"Reform" means the incremental destruction of public education.
I am reminded of George Orwell's lines from his prophetic novel 1984:
"War is peace."
"Freedom is slavery."
"Ignorance is strength."
The goal of the leadership in the novel was to teach the population "doublethink." To believe in contradictory ideas.
So we see schools closed, teachers and principals fired, and we are supposed to believe this is "reform."
The media, with few exceptions, say that what is happening almost everywhere is "reform," so it must be reform to replace public schools with privately managed charters, and to fire experienced professionals and replace them with newcomers, with untrained and inexperienced teachers and with principals who taught for one or two years.
It must be reform to allow out-of-state billionaires to buy local and state school board elections so they can control the schools of a state they don't live in.
I confess I am also irritated by the habit of referring to young children as "scholars." To me, a scholar is someone who has devoted his or her professional life to the advancement of knowledge. If a 5-year-old is a "scholar," what do you call a distinguished university professor who is widely recognized for her research and publications?
Has the public been suckered into believing that the destruction of public education is "reform"?
Does the public willingly accept the idea that hedge fund managers and equity investors are taking control of what is supposed to be a public responsibility?
Will we let them monetize our children and their public schools?
Does the public understand that a small group inside the Beltway wrote the "national standards" behind closed doors, that one billionaire (Bill Gates) paid for them and paid millions to national education organizations to advocate for them, and that the federal government bribed 45 states to endorse them?
How long will the public tolerate tests tied to those standards that are designed to fail 65-70 percent of the nation's children?
How much longer will we allow the nation's children to be labeled and sorted by standardized tests whose outcomes may be predicted by family income?
When will the public realize that test-based accountability does not improve education, does not promote better teaching, and actually reduces the quality of education?
How long can the Emperor parade through the streets before someone tells him he is naked?
How long can a charade persist before the public knows they have been conned?
How long will it take to unmask this great theft of a democratic institution that belongs to the public, not to entrepreneurs, foundations, right-wing ideologues, hedge fund managers, or their compliant politicians?
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