The wonders of shifting rationales

(What a great week to be an education blogger)

The old case for sweeping reforms: The changes we're suggesting are drastic and costly with bad track records and the potential to severely damage the system they are meant to save, but the current state of education is so bad that the future of our country depends on implementing radical reforms.

The new case for sweeping reform: it turns out the problem is not that big or wide-reaching but it's good that people mistakenly thought it was so bad because that encourages us to make all these changes.

(h/t Matthew Yglesias)