This incisive essay by E.D. Hirsch appears in the October-November 2002 issue of the Hoover Institution's Policy Review. In 18 short pages (10 via the web), he elucidates why so much education research doesn't qualify as decent science, depicts the "fundamental shortcoming" in what educators call "qualitative research," and suggests that education policy and practice should pay more heed to general findings of lab-style cognitive science, of which he identifies half a dozen key principles. Along the way, Hirsch also takes a swipe at the contemporary push for "random assignment" experimentation in education. It may yield confidence that a particular intervention caused an observed change, he says, but "we cannot necessarily be confident that the observed effect size will be repeated in new circumstances." "Classroom Research and Cargo Cults," by E.D. Hirsch, Policy Review, October-November 2002
