Afternoon Video: The Silencing Effect Of Teacher Hero/Villain Rhetoric

 I'm not exactly sure what the news hook was here - Teacher Appreciation Week, maybe? -- but here's a May 3rd Vox video of former education reporter Dana Goldstein (now at The Marshall Project) talking about outsized demands the public and policymakers demand of teachers, rhetorically at least.

In other places, Goldstein has argued that there has been a "moral panic" about veteran classroom teachers, in which they are vilified and end up leaving the field. You can read about that here: At AFT Conference, Goldstein Compares Reform Efforts To "Moral Panic"; Goldstein Compares Current Teacher Fears To 1980s' Welfare Fears. 

There are certainly examples of teachers being called on to do superhuman work, or denounced for the failures of a handful. But the rhetoric certainly goes both ways (hero and villain), and I'm not sure that these extremes are taken very seriously by policymakers or the public.

There may be some cumulative effect of the repeated assertion, however -- and the unfortunate effect of silencing pragmatic debate over improving teaching.