Don’t ask “does it work?”

From Larry Cuban:

Do Core Knowledge Programs Work?

As for many school reforms over the past century, answering the “effectiveness” question–does it work?–is no easy task. The first major issue is answering the question of whether Core Knowledge was fully implemented in classrooms. If not completely implemented, then judging outcomes become suspect. Many of the early studies of Core Knowledge in schools were mixed, some showing higher test scores and some showing no positive effects (see herehere, here, and here). The Core Knowledge Foundation has a list of studies that they assert show positive outcomes. What is so often missing from research on reforms such as Core Knowledge are descriptions of the contextual conditions in which the reform is located and researchers saying clearly: under what conditions does this program prove effective? That is too often missing including the research on Core Knowledge schools.

The primary job of education research shouldn’t be to figure out what works, or to put it another way we shouldn’t expect the have a yes/no answer to that question. How does it work? When does it work? When it didn’t work, why didn’t it work? When it’s not used with fidelity, why wasn’t it used with fidelity? Education is not served well by the way research on program efficacy seems to frequently be done.