Are you excessively cheerful? Did you turn your frown upside down and now it’s stuck that way? David Steiner will remove your rose-colored glasses and stomp on them, repeatedly.

The U.S. education system is “designed for failure,” writes Steiner on The 74. Only what once was called “failure” has been rebranded as “success.” It’s so much easier that way.

Steiner is a professor of education and director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, a member of the Maryland State Board of Education and served as commissioner of the New York State Education Department. So he’s been around the block a few times.