However, the difficulties inherent in conducting randomized field trials in schools and classrooms, coupled with the desperate need for immediate answers for difficult—often seemingly intractable—school problems, the proliferation of alluring and highly promoted commercial products and services, and a less-than-demanding research tradition have overwhelmed the education community with a glut of unproven and too often ineffective practices.

Unlike the medical community, where it is considered malpractice when physicians fail to use treatments, surgeries, and interventions based on the results of rigorous clinical and randomized field trials, the vast majority of the education community's practices can be characterized as reforms du jour; too often based on what seems right, is well-packaged and promoted, is suggested by anecdotal evidence, or, though promoted as research-based, is in fact the result of poorly-designed and unscientific research methods. Reports from the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy (2002) and the National Research Council (1999, 2000, 2002) describe current education practice and policy as resting on a weak research foundation. The National Academies Press published a National Research Council book entitled Scientific Research in Education on the principles of scientifically based research.

There have been a few outstanding exceptions to the weak foundation in educational research. Two of these have been rigorous, multi-disciplinary, large-scale, coordinated, scientifically based research studies in Reading and Professional Development—Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children and publications by the National Reading Panel. Reports on the research in Professional Development may be found at http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/teaching/epdp/index.html.