Complains that the relevance of research to educational reform evaporated in 1985 when the William Bennett/Chester Finn team began to promote reform by rhetoric. A reorganized Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) then abandoned plans to forge a strong link between researchers and practitioners. (MLH)

Productivity growth (and its connections with schools) may be mysterious, but experts continue to document an expanding U.S. economy. A University of Wisconsin study described in the Fall 1999 "ERS Spectrum" found a mismatch between teachers' actual and recommended grading practices. Maybe the literature is unreasonable. (MLH)

Replies to Crandall's claim that Finn had disrupted a decade of solid research in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement Office (OERI) regional educational laboratories. According to Finn, these labs have wasted taxpayers' money. Currently, states command school policy and finances, and key decision-makers are governors and…

Highlighting Success for All, this article argues that federal funds are being used to support the promulgation and biased evaluation of failed programs. Educators need to beware of conflicts of interest and developers' misleading claims about publicly and privately developed programs. Independent evaluators are needed. (MLH)

Shows why most discussions of self-esteem theory and practice are unsatisfactory. Part I reviews available research, which finds little causal relationship between self-esteem and student achievement. Part II calls into question the values inherent in the concept, particularly the overemphasis on individualism and self-actualization. Part III…

Instead of presenting a body of research attesting to constructivism's effectiveness, Lynn Chrenka cites a litany of "supportive" comments from dead geniuses. The teacher as expert and lecturer is anathema to constructivist doctrine. Sages who speak passionately and authoritatively about a subject they love are increasingly rare in public schools.…

If education is to halt the ever-swinging pendulum and make significant progress in student achievement, it must first change the ground rules for selecting, implementing, evaluating, and institutionalizing innovations like Hunter's model. This article proposes steps for providing an infrastructure capable of promoting lasting and beneficial…

Countless good ideas, research, and reforms (silver bullets) have yielded only modest improvement, suggesting problems of research (dogma, design, duration, and domain) and problems of distribution--expanded teacher responsibility. This article recommends revamping teacher education, remediating or firing incompetent teachers, and reducing class…

There is probably no widespread educational practice as thoroughly discredited as retention in grade. If the research undercutting this practice is sound, the task is to uproot outdated misconceptions appealing to educators'"common sense" wisdom. An Arizona study's influence on the attitudes of community leaders, local teachers, and…

Educational reforms fail because they are usually based on certain myths about training, advocacy, theory, knowledge dissemination, complete restructuring, paradigm shifts, and small-scale studies. These misconceptions result in wasted resources for staff development and dissemination, few professional validation standards, repeat cycles of…