The Sorry History of “What Works” in School
Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Fordham’s President-Emeritus Chester Finn, Jr. writes about his colleague Mike Petrilli’s new resource for educators, Acceleration Imperative: A Plan to Address Elementary Students’ Unfinished Learning in the Wake of Covid-19. Finn chronicles the history of efforts to do “what works” to improve teaching and learning. The author expresses skepticism of new efforts for improving the high-poverty urban public elementary schools that Petrilli’s resource is targeting.