Mitch,

A few years ago, Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute wrote an instructive book entitled “Spinning Wheels: The Politics of Urban School Reform.” The book frames urban school reform in terms of “policy churn,” a process whereby a new superintendent will ride into town with new ideas and implements (mostly symbolic) changes that have no long-term benefit for students, teachers, or the school district. After a few years of stagnation, the superintendent leaves (or is fired) and the cycle continues with a new whippersnapper in charge. What is the cure, according to Hess? School choice.

Speaking of cycles, a decade before “Spinning Wheels,” David Tyack and Larry Cuban wrote “Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform,” a fantastic book that documents the way that reform cycles perpetuate the same failed reforms again and again. Why? Tyack and Cuban point out that education reform tends to be ahistorical, as reformers fail to learn from the mistakes of previous generations. The solution according to Tyack and Cuban? This is the major failing of the book. They want to put the teachers in charge (while heaping on the platitudes).

So, what is my take on Dr. Burns’s plan? I read this quote recently that might capture it best:

“We trained hard, but it seemed every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.”

From Petronii Arbitri Satyricon 66 AD.
Attributed to Gaius Petronus, Roman General