I think like everything else in education, society places the blame on educators when they are the ones who tell us what we should/should not do without being educators themselves.  Education has become a political fight instead of a fight to enhance our future generation to become leading adults.  Everything in education seems to be a crisis.  A new way appears constantly with “scientific” data.  Teachers have to “unpack” new standards to teach our children, especially with NCLB.  What other profession has those outside the profession dictate what, how, when, why something occurs?  The “reading war” and everything else in life, you can’t rely on a single way of doing it.  There is no exact science to teaching.  Something may work with one child one year and not the next.  You have to use your judgement and combine your repertoire of skills and knowledge to teach.  “Professional responsibility obliges teachers to be articulate participants in both the public and professional arenas of curriculum inquiry and debate… Dialogue and advancement of learning in the subjects [math, science, social studies, reading, language arts, etc.] - in the classroom and out: This is the work of teachers” (Oakes & Lipton, p. 158).