“The older I get, the better I was” may increasingly apply to self-assessments of baby-boomers, but reflecting fondly on yester-year is no basis for public policy. Sometimes it seems that sheer repetition of assertions (especially about schooling) allow them to take on what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness” but here we will examine recommendations for education policy that come with evidence to back them up.
I once heard Dale Mann say “In God we trust….all others bring data” and in this area we are agnostic when it comes to any particular educational philosophy…no dogma allowed!
We want to see what works, why it works, and how practices that are effective in one setting may be extended to improve learning trajectories in others.