So much of what we do in schools is based on continuing familiar patterns of belief and behavior. Here are a few ideas whose time is up.

In 1983, the President’s Commission on Excellence in Education published its report, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. The report famously stated, “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” The report supported the idea that American schools were failing and touched off a wave of state and federal reform efforts that continue to this day. The 1989 Bush Education Summit, Goals 2000, NCLB, Race to the Top, and ESEA waivers are rooted in the same political soil, based on the belief that legislative action and Department of Education regulations could improve education outcomes.