A lot of education "experts" (people doing education research, policy and Ted talks) are usually privileged enough that their parents forced them to memorise enough phonics and times tables to get to college, and think that the teachers who tried to do the same were just wasting their precious time when they could have been doing interesting things like talking about philosophy.

Education as a discipline has no real knowledge or skills in the Anglosphere beyond basic essay writing. Historically teaching was a craft, taught in trade schools or on the job, but for various reasons it moved to university without universitiea having of the content developed, so universities took the low road and asked PhD candidates to essentially write essays on the philosophy of education so that's now the content.

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. And those who can't teach, teach teachers, and since the content is just writing essays on the philosophy of education their confidence in non-existent abilities is never pressure tested.