EDUCATION: THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS
(SPOILER: THE BAD NEWS HAS A SUBSCRIPTION FEE)
A primate dispatch from the front lines of the classroom — where the real experts actually work
Let's start with the good news: politicians across America have finally discovered that children exist and that teaching them things is, in fact, important. Thirty-five governors stood at their podiums in early 2026 and said, with great solemnity, "Kids should learn stuff." Applause. Confetti. Photo opportunity.
Now the bad news: the "stuff" they've decided kids should learn is being packaged, branded, and sold back to you — courtesy of the same billionaire-funded think tanks, PAC advisors, and edtech entrepreneurs who have been circling America's public schools like very well-dressed vultures over a very profitable playground.
Welcome to the Science of Reading — or as the teachers I trust have taken to calling it, Billionaire BS Babble©. Coming soon to a subscription-based app near you.
The Two Conversations About Education — And Why Only One Matters
There are currently two very different conversations happening about how to fix American education.
Conversation #1 happens in marble-floored conference rooms, think tank symposiums, and governor's mansions. It features PowerPoint slides, the phrase "evidence-based," and a remarkable number of people who have never actually taught a child to read but have very strong opinions about how it should be done. This conversation is generously funded by billionaires who, having already disrupted taxis, rockets, and your sleep schedule, have now set their sights on the one remaining frontier: your kid's kindergarten classroom.
Conversation #2 happens in actual classrooms. It is conducted by actual teachers — people who spent years studying child development, learning theory, and pedagogy. People who buy supplies with their own money, stay late grading papers, and know every child's name, learning style, and what makes them light up. These teachers have not, notably, been rushing to the microphone to shout "Yes! Give us more SOR mandates and LETRS training modules! This is exactly what we needed!"
Funny how that works.
Follow the Money — It Leads Straight to the Playground
Here's the old admonition that never gets old: follow the money.
The Science of Reading movement — now being cloned into a shiny new "Science of Math" movement — arrives with a very familiar entourage:
- Billionaire-backed think tanks producing the "research"
- PAC advisors whispering into governors' ears
- Edtech companies waiting patiently with their subscription-based platforms
- Politicians who couldn't tell you the difference between phonemic awareness and a phonograph, but can absolutely tell you which donors funded their last campaign
Iowa's Math Counts Act requires K-6 math screenings three times a year. California's SB 1067 wants annual K-2 math screenings. Alabama has its Numeracy Act. Every single one of these well-intentioned mandates arrives with a built-in market for assessment tools, intervention software, professional development contracts, and — of course — the apps.
Your child is not a student in this model. Your child is a data point with a lunch box.
What Teachers Actually Know (That Billionaires Don't)
Here's the uncomfortable truth that no think tank white paper will tell you: teachers have been studying how children learn for decades. The science of reading, the science of math, the science of how small humans develop into thinking, curious, capable people — this is not new information that billionaires discovered in a Silicon Valley brainstorming session.
What is new is the business model wrapped around it.
The teachers worth listening to — the ones not on anyone's payroll, not angling for a consulting contract, not building a brand — will tell you that good teaching is:
- Relational, not algorithmic
- Adaptive, not scripted
- Holistic, not reducible to a screening score
- Funded properly, not monetized endlessly
Not one teacher has stood up and said "What I really needed was a third-party assessment platform and a mandated curriculum I had no voice in choosing." The voices cheering loudest for SOR mandates are, almost without exception, the voices with something to sell.
The Vulture Economy of Education Reform
There is a pattern here that should make every parent, every voter, and every person who once sat in a classroom deeply uncomfortable.
The Educrat Oligarchy — that elegant collision of billionaire philanthropy, political influence, and edtech entrepreneurship — has perfected a very specific playbook:
- Declare a crisis (reading scores are terrible! math scores are terrible!)
- Fund the research that points to your preferred solution
- Lobby the politicians who mandate that solution statewide
- Sell the solution to every school district in America — at scale, on subscription
It is, from a pure business perspective, genius. From a "we are talking about children" perspective, it is something considerably less flattering.
As one sharp observer put it: they look like vultures circling kids on a playground. The image is uncomfortable because it is accurate.
Meanwhile, the same billionaires who are very concerned about your child's phonics scores have not, as yet, solved climate change, cured diseases, or done much about the fact that teachers in the wealthiest nation on Earth are buying their own pencils.
Perhaps they could redirect some of that energy. Just a thought.
What Comes Next: May Day Strong — May 1, 2026
The good news — the real good news — is that people are waking up.
May Day 2026 is shaping up to be exactly the kind of loud, uncomfortable, sign-waving, comfortable-shoe-wearing reckoning that the Educrat Oligarchy did not put on its calendar. From MayDayStrong.org to the NEA's organizing toolkit, the infrastructure for resistance is already built.
The ask is simple and the ask is urgent:
- Listen to teachers — not think tanks, not PAC advisors, not billionaires with education foundations and edtech portfolios
- Protect public education as a public good, not a profit center
- Call your Senator at (202) 224-3121 and demand a vote on the DISCLOSE Act — because sunlight is the best disinfectant for dark money in education policy
- Call your Representative and demand co-sponsorship of H.J. Res. 122
- Show up on May 1st — because the people who love children because they are children deserve louder voices than the people who love children because they represent market share
The Bottom Line
The good news is that education is finally on the political agenda. The bad news is that the agenda was written by people who profit from the problem they're pretending to solve.
Real education reform doesn't come in a subscription box. It doesn't arrive via a think tank white paper funded by a billionaire who has never set foot in a Title I school. It comes from teachers — underpaid, overworked, and still showing up every single morning because they actually love the kids sitting in front of them.
So lace up those protest shoes. Grab your signs. And remember: the most radical act in 2026 might just be trusting a teacher.
#MayDayStrong | #WorkersOverBillionaires | #ProtectStudentData | #BreakUpBigTech | #NoKings
📖 Further reading: From Citizens United to Neo-Feudalism: Why May Day 2026 Is the Most Important Day You're Not Talking About — Big Education Ape
