ABSTRACT
Throughout the twentieth century, in fields such as medicine, agriculture, transportation and technology, processes of development, rigorous evaluation and dissemination have produced a pace of innovation and improvement that is unprecedented in history (Shavelson and Towne 2002). These innovations have transformed the world. Yet education has failed to embrace this dynamic, and as a result, education moves from fad to fad. Educational practice does change over time, but the change process more resembles the pendulum swings of taste characteristic of art or fashion rather than the progressive improvements characteristic of science and technology (Slavin 1989, 2003).
