Tinkering Toward Utopia

In “Shooting Bottle Rockets at the Moon: Overcoming the Legacy of Incremental Education Reform,” Thomas Kane says:

…we must be able to make a plausible argument that a given set of reforms will produce improvements of the desired magnitude.   There is no reason to expect that non-controversial, incremental policies such as more professional development, incrementally smaller class sizes, and better facilities will produce substantial change.  The current backlash against the Common Core and new teacher evaluation systems is, at least in part, a result of our long history of underpowered, incremental reforms.   By failing to worry about magnitudes, we have led politicians and voters to expect school reform without controversy.   We cannot return to shooting bottle rockets when Saturn V’s are required.  We need to recognize the magnitude of the changes required to achieve our goals.

I wonder what David Tyack and Larry Cuban would say.

Read the entire analysis here.

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