Lisa Alva Wood, a teacher in the Los Angeles public schools, belonged to an array of corporate reform groups.

She belonged to Educators for Excellence and other corporate-sponsored groups.

She participated in an E4E video, along with other teachers, supporting a group that promotes high-stakes testing, evaluation of teachers by test scores, charter schools, etc., all in the name of “civil rights” and “excellence.”

She believed in their promises, she thought they were sincere in wanting the best for all students.

Then she listened in to a phone conversation and was stunned by what she heard.

She realized that she was part of a “team” that was working to protect John Deasy.

She realized that she did not share the goals of the larger group, which consisted of some 51 organizations.

And she quit.

Read here to find out why.

Here is a sample of what she heard and why she quit:

Long story short, these folks made a huge showing outside the morning Board meeting, while 35,000 union members were busy serving the needs of our youth. It was a much needed wake-up call. I began to realize the extent of the ignorance and hubris that fuels many ed-reform decisions, as well as the extent of my own ignorance. The addition of businessmen and socialites to a board I sat on made sense suddenly, as did their posturing and pronouncements. If you’ve ever heard people mis-speaking about things you know intimately, or talking about you when they thought you weren’t listening, you know how pained I was and still am. I couldn’t speak then and have just found the words, now.

Some of the groups in the pro-Deasy rally – Students First, Green Dot, KIPP LA – were to be expected, although they have no business in LAUSD’s superintendent evaluation. Others made me gag in wonder – Goodwill of Southern California? Inner-City Struggle? LA Education Partnership? I thought we were friends!

They weren’t talking about me, personally, but they clearly saw themselves as supporting their hero, a hero whose arch-enemy is my union, UTLA. It was, and is, very difficult to understand why they need to draw a protective circle in the sand around John Deasy. (Speculation is rampant, but facts are hard to come by). The bottom line for me personally is that there are too many good people distracted by too many superfluous groups. The best place for an educator to protect and promote public education is the teachers’ union. Over time, for better or for worse, the union is the educators’ bastion and it is set up via a democratic process in which any member can participate. If UTLA needs to be more positive and professional, we need to make it that way ourselves, but that’s another story.

What do these people want, for our youth, really? School choice is a wonderful thing for those of us who actively choose – but we all have the sacred obligation to provide a quality public education for all children. This means I could get my own daughter into a magnet school by filling out the applications, kissing principal butt, following through with phone calls and then getting her to the bus stop at oh-dark-thirty; I did that. But I still have a very real obligation to the kids down the street to make sure that our neighborhood school is fully staffed and resourced, and functioning with district support.