Regarding Mike's post, isn't it odd that a school embraces healthy food alternatives only after a two-year research study? It reminds one of the humorous dig at think tanks: that they study reality to see if it conforms to theory. In Philadelphia's schools, it seems, common sense has truly been vindicated. It is, in fact, correct that replacing soda and potato chips with healthful alternatives will make students healthier!
What happens, though, when this study is replicated in Memphis or Honolulu or Boise and yields no significant results? More studies, no doubt.
Here arises a problem with education reform overall: Common sense often dies at the hands of reports and statistics that obscure or even contradict it. (This occurs in lots of other fields, too. Michael Pollan, for example, makes a persuasive case that America's national eating disorder is, in large part, a product of lousy scientific studies.) It's counterproductive, of course, to toss out the baby with the bathwater and eschew all studies in favor of tradition, but one wonders just how enthralled by statisticians ed reformers wish to be.