Fashions in ideas, like clothes, change with the times.
But when they are in fashion, they become the wisdom of the moment. Supply-side economics, embraced by the Republicans during the Reagan presidency, cut taxes and ran up unparalleled deficits. It was group-think wisdom. Sure there were critics but GOP champions called them nail-biting nay-sayers who had no entree to top policy makers or a tuxedo for White House dinners. Within a few years, supply-side economics–or what Reagan’s success George H.W. Bush called “voodoo economics“–rested in a dumpster. Donald Trump gave much visibility to conspiracy theories (e.g., QAnon) and the “deep state”. Prominent in the President’s daily twitter stream, they are the meat-and-potatoes of social and mainstream media now. After Trump vacates the White House, the next Administration will empty these conspiratorial ideas into the ideological trash-bin.
Ditto for fashionable educational ideas. When I was a graduate student four decades ago, I took notes about the dominant ideas that my professors said drove federal and state policy making in the early 1970s: School do not make a difference in children’s lives; socioeconomic status does. Improving schools may be worthwhile work but it is as ineffectual in altering larger society as building CONTINUE READING: Schools and the Economy–Not Yet a Faddish Idea | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice