The New Stupid
by Frederick M. Hess • Dec 19, 2011 at 7:59 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
Cross-posted from Education Week
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A little while back, I published a piece titled "The New Stupid" in Educational Leadership. It's a piece that's perhaps more relevant today than when I wrote it, and one that folks continue to ask about. Anyway, given that things have slowed down for the pre-holiday week, I thought I'd share it over the next few days. So, here we go:
A decade ago, it was disconcertingly easy to find education leaders who dismissed student achievement data and systematic research as having only limited utility when it came to improving schools or school systems. Today, we have come full circle. It is hard to attend an education conference or read an education magazine without encountering broad claims for data-based decision making and research-based practice. Yet these phrases can too readily morph into convenient buzzwords that obscure rather than clarify. Indeed, I fear that