The author of this article states that, for more than 20 years, public educators have developed a professional inferiority complex and a strong sense of hopelessness. After all, he claims, the dominant message over those years, including from some within the profession, has been that educators have caused the declining quality in public schools. Educators have failed and continue to fail the nation and its children. They caused the decline in the nation's economic competitiveness. Educators have placed the nation at risk. Sadly, this critique of the education profession has been trumpeted for so long and by so many that it is accepted uncritically as fact. Saddest of all is that, when educators are told often and by many that there are low expectations for them, they begin to believe it and act like it. Politicians do not have the answers that schools need. The author contends that it is time for educators to stop indulging in self-blame and to stand up forcefully for what the profession believes is best for children. (Contains 1 endnote.)