> Who are these “educational consultants”? <
Well, since you asked, they come in two flavors.
The first kind are Education PhDs from universities. They have never taught in a public high school. Yet they have all the answers. Their talks always start with “Research shows...”.
Never mind that their research says one thing one day, and something completely different the next day. Open classrooms are good. No, they are bad. That sort of thing.
The second kind are from for-profit education companies. They provide manuals, software, etc. Some of it is good. But most of it is garbage.
Again, their representatives have never taught in a public high school. Yet they too have all the answers. Their talks always start with “Turn to page 1 in your manual...”.
These two groups have one thing in common. They are able to seduce urban school boards with their fancy talk.