In Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), AEI resident scholar Frederick Hess cuts through the sentiment and obfuscation that suffuse the school reform debates. He exposes the insufficiency of reform strategies that rest on solutions like class size reduction, small schools, and enhanced professional development. Hess believes that fundamental educational reform necessitates increased flexibility in faculty hiring and removal, the use of technology to overhaul educational practices and increase efficiency, and the embracing of competition to promote diverse forms of school operation and focus. He further argues that teachers should be paid and promoted based on performance. Hess believes that real improvement requires a bracing regime of common sense reforms to create a culture of competence by rewarding excellence, punishing failure, and giving educators the freedom and flexibility to do their work.
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