I do not have an interest in practicing medicine. I have never been to medical school. I am not a qualified medical doctor. Therefore, I have never practiced medicine nor been an apprentice in any specialized area of medical practice. While I have an earned doctorate in education, I am not a medical doctor.

Imagine this. Your child needs major life-saving surgery. You come to your consultation to meet with the surgeon. It is me. In full disclosure, I share my professional background, as well as your child’s data, diagnosis, and prognosis. I have asked my best advisor and friend, a Wall Street banker, to help me prepare for our conversation. I have also read online medical journals to help me with the diagnosis and to make decisions about the surgical options. Are you ready to entrust your child’s life to me?

I am sharing this scenario to help us think about how ridiculous this is, and it is happening to our nation’s schools and students. Folks who do not have a passion for educating all of our children, have never studied education, have never taught in a classroom nor served as an education administrator, have never taken and paid for multiple licensure assessments, have never been immersed in school professional learning communities, nor have ever experienced what is like to teach high – needs underserved students without enough resources, step confidently into education leadership roles without any acknowledgement of how unqualified they are for the work.

They pick up tools they don’t know how to use. They constantly question and undermine highly effective professionals in the field, haphazardly dismantle programs and practices, without evaluating their impact. They do not know why these initiatives exist, and ignore the ethical and legal implications of rushed de-implementation. Moreover, because they are not education professionals, they have even taken action to dumb down our profession, refusing to acknowledge its distinguished contributions to society and its merit.

This is insanity, folks. Just like I would not allow an unqualified surgeon to operate on my precious son Aiden, I do not want pseudo-educators to practice on our nation’s children. Our work is life changing and sometimes life saving. We are not flipping burgers in the schoolhouse. Teachers, school, and district leaders have been entrusted with educating a diverse student population, and we need excellent, highly qualified national leadership to help improve outcomes for all children.

If we would never let amateurs experiment on our children’s bodies, we should stop pretending it’s acceptable to let them experiment on our children’s minds. Children are not policy laboratories, and education leadership is not an internship for people who have never done the work. Our children deserve surgeons of learning, not spectators with power and no preparation.

Until we treat education as the life-shaping profession it is, unqualified hands will keep harming children under the false banner of reform. Unqualified leadership in education is not innovation—it is negligence.