Was it a meteor? A UFO? Or just the light of reason dawning at the Tribune (Education Reforms get a Failing Grade: Neither conservatives nor liberals have a cure for bad schools)?

Of course, he immediately states that the other side's reforms (he lists lower class size and increased funding) haven't worked either. You know, "Well, we were both wrong."

But I'll let that pass and bask in the hope that this new enlightenment will take root across the page -- I expect to see Tribune board editorials any day retracting their support for Sen. Meeks' voucher bill (they loved it as recently as two weeks ago), slamming the Advance Illinois agenda for our state's Race to the Top proposal (they just came out for more charters and test-driven teacher evaluation) and demanding more accountability from charter schools (here's just one example le of the double of the double standard they have been using).

Chapman does something even better than admitting that the Trib has been wrong -- he admits that we don't know enough about what works in education and why, and cautions that imposing one-size-fits-all solutions "such as those offered by the Obama administration" is the wrong approach.

But we do know some things. There are models of success in our own back yard, such as the local school council-based reforms of the 1990's detailed in Designs for Change's The Big Picture, the wholistic approach described in the Consortium on Chicago School Research's new study, Organizing Schools for Improvement, and the parent- and teacher-centered programs of Strtegic Learning Initiatives. 

And we need to stop wasting time on all the mandates and top-down "fixes" that don't work and get busy doing a better job expanding some of the things that do work.