A decade ago, many education leaders dismissed student achievement data and systematic research as having only limited utility when it came to improving schools or school systems. That was the "old stupid." But now the pendulum has swung the other way. In the "new stupid," data-based decision making and research-based practice can stand in for…

When education issues come to be understood in terms that neatly overlay the standard ideological alignments, they often become proxies for the war between Right and Left. This has been the case in the instance of charter schools, with proponents and critics mustering up researchers and findings to buttress their respective claims and, in general,…