It looks to me from reading the reports as if it's more complicated than a simple "didn't have an effect." Some of the supports that were assumed at the start of the program were removed by reforms in the middle of the trial. That's bound to screw things up a bit. It also sounds like the goals they set were acknowledged from the start to be pie-in-the-sky impossible. (Of course, I would argue that those are then NOT in fact goals! Goals should be achievable, measurable and desirable. So that's just kind of dumb, I'd say.)
Still, clearly not a raging success!
I do appreciate the fact that they are really analyzing what worked and what didn't. They did not brush this under the rug. The reports are there to be read by anyone, so that's good. The question now is what will we learn from this, from NCLB, from other failed educational reforms. And what will we do with that understanding?
