In a recent blog, Rick Hess explains “Why Education Innovation Tends to Crash and Burn.” His analysis of why promising innovations so often flame out does a good job of describing the situation as it has been for many years. He notes that many innovations depend initially on exceptional funding, rare expertise, temporary enthusiasm, or one-off policies unlikely to be maintained for long, and discusses the problems of trying to innovate in entrenched institutions.
These factors may all be important in explaining how things have been. Where I take issue with Hess is in his suggestions for building support for innovations going forward: Keeping innovations simple, inexpensive, and located outside of traditional institutions. None of these characterize the few proven innovations that have made a difference for many years, and changes now happening in this arena may greatly improve the chances that today’s proven innovations will also thrive. For example, our Success for All whole-school approach celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and works with about 1,000 schools and has impacted over 2 million children. Reading Recovery, a tutoring model for struggling first graders, is even older, and continues in hundreds of schools.
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