At the national level, debate about school reform typically has been characterized by clashing paradigms offering unicausal explanations and universal prescriptions. At the street level, where parents and practitioners wrestle on a day-to-day basis with questions of what to do, the terms of discussion more typically are concrete, rooted in local history and influential personalities. The former style of discourse tends to promote polarization and winner-take-all battles while the latter sustains a process of unguided "muddling through." These two dynamics--clashing ideas and parochial practice--operate largely independently, but when they do intersect, it is more often in ways that are dysfunctional rather than enlightening. We lay out this dilemma and suggest some prospects for reform. (Contains 1 table and 7 notes.)