Research and Complacency
So a lot of recent conversation in the education blogosphere has been about research, specifically whether or not it used or used wisely (here and here). These are timely and important conversations to have as I find a lot of truth to them.
An excellent example of the role of research in the education reform conversation can be seen in this blog. I don’t know the author of this blog, and it is certainly no better or no worse that many others, it is simply one that came across my social media feeds and caught my attention as a topic that I have read a lot of research on. So my apologies to the author in advance for being singled out.
The blog discusses the fact that improvement of schooling at the high school level has been particularly difficult. The author mentions a series of articles from EdWeek that are located behind a pay wall, so I am unable to determine what, if any, research or examples are cited in the material. The only other citation of “research” is from a policy paper from a philanthropic organization. The author concludes that the reason that it is so hard to reform high school is that most communities are complacent about the quality of their high school as simply “good enough” and that they reject the idea of changing the system as something that only those poor, inner city schools with Research and Complacency | The Patiently Impatient Teacher: