Education in the United States was in a state of "crisis" at the time of the 1983 release of "A Nation at Risk," the landmark report on the US education reform. This was the time when the rising Japanese economy started threatening the post-war US economic dominance and conservative figures such as Ronald Reagan gained popular…

For years social science researchers have bemoaned their lack of impact on educational policy. The general view is that policy makers respond to urgent problems with ad hoc solutions and without evidence of what works. It has also become fashionable among comparativists to argue that little learning occurs at the local level but that innovations…