It’s easy to get caught up in our enthusiasms of the moment. But it’s worth recognizing that much of what we think of as “reform” (of whatever stripe) has plenty of backstory. After all, many of our frustrations are less novel and more familiar than we sometimes imagine. As Payne points out, “Virtually all reformers tout their work as ‘research-based.’ The term has been so debased that it is no longer clear that it refers to anything at all, but it clearly does not refer to research on the history of past reforms” (p. 181).

If we’re going to refashion a 19th-century model of schooling for the 21st century (and I think we need to), this all suggests that how we go about it will be at least as important as what we try to do.

And, while we certainly should evaluate new programs and scrutinize their impacts on reading and math scores, I can’t help but think that we’d be at least as well-served if advocates, analysts, funders, journalists, policymakers, and fired-up district officials all spent a little more time taking the measure of what’s gone before.

Read the source article at aei.org