Earlier today, I posted EduShyster on this very same video. The point that the creator of the video makes with humor, I decided, is so important that it deserves a post of its own.

David Coffey, who created the video, is a teacher of teachers. He is a professor in the mathematics department at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. His wife is a first grade teacher.

He made the video linked above because he found it annoying that a celebrated movie director had written a widely publicized book about how to reform the nation’s schools. These days, it seems that everyone knows how to “reform” the schools, and the farther removed they are from the schools, the more they know.

I admit feeling a certain annoyance, frustration, even rage when I read that some star athlete has opened a charter school. Andre Agassiz, the great tennis star, has raised $750 million from investors to open a chain of charters. Why isn’t he opening tennis camps? That would make sense.

Not long ago, I read about a charter opened in Texas by a basketball star, or was it a football star? I don’t recall. Whoever it is, he is not an educator.

What madness has overtaken our nation? Why the push to hand innocent children and scarce public dollars to non-educators? How does “caring” about education translate into the experience and knowledge needed to run a school?

Everyone has “answers,” it seems. One of the top education books on amazon is by Tea Party hero, Ron Paul, who thinks we should simply get rid of public education altogether. Ron Paul is a physician and an elected official. Other than having gone to school, I see no education experience in his bio. His “answer” will take us backwards to about 1800 or so.

NBC’s Education Nation has a long list of speakers and panelists. The only educator that I spotted on the list was Randi Weingarten. The only education scholar was David Kirp of Berkeley. Otherwise the list of speakers is dominated by rightwing governors and ex-governors and business leaders. Why no working classroom teachers or principals from one of our nation’s many great public schools?

I do believe this era of collective Dumb will end. History does not move in a straight line. We must maintain our sense of right and wrong , we must maintain our professional ethics, we must uphold the standards of professionalism that other societies recognize as vital to the success of schools and children.

Stay strong and do what is in the best interest of children, families, communities, and our democracy. That is a winning formula, even if it is temporarily eclipsed by celebrity worship and a campaign of misinformation.