Good Apples, Bad Metaphors, and Why NBC is Wrong

At the end of this month, NBC's two-day "Education Summit" will take place in New York City.  One of the "confirmed" sessions at "Education Nation" is: Good Apples: How do we keep good teachers, throw out bad ones, and put a new shine on the profession? I am not joking. This is actually true.


This is what I sent to NBC:

I was disheartened to read of your summit that is designed to "fix" schooling and includes the"confirmed" session titled: Good Apples: How do we keep good teachers, throw out bad ones, and put a new shine on the profession?

This is disgraceful, insulting, counter productive, and ignorant. The disdain of actual educators--not policy makers, CEOs, mayors, chancellors, commissioners, and so on--but rather, people who actually teach and lead in schools is clearly present in the Discourse NBC has produced. 

In what other profession would a national summit be convened that would find it allowable to exclude representatives of that profession as you have done in this summit? Can you imagine a national summit about law that did not include lawyers? Or a medical summit, sans doctors?

This is a disgrace.

NBC says, "It's time to reinvent America as an Education Nation."  Imagine thinking America could truly be reinvented without privileging the voices of teachers, administrators, and students.  If I watched any TV,  I'd boycott NBC. I am curious as to what you think.