ABSTRACT
Education is a field about which everyone has opinions—often strong ones. Since virtually all of us have attended school, we know a lot about education through our own experiences. There are other fields in which we also have direct experience—medicine, for example. We have all received medical treatment of some kind, and most of us have been exposed to various home remedies to which we retain some attachment. Our opinions about health and medicine, however, are usually of a general nature: When we really need help or information, we are likely to rely on experts. This is much less the case in education, where we tend to think of ourselves as experts. We may complain about medical costs and may object to a specific treatment, but we do not try to tell physicians or hospitals what to do—as we frequently tell teachers and schools what they should be doing.
