What could be more obvious? New textbooks, new curricular, new reforms, whatever, can easily be tested and should be tested.

The bizarre thing is that there is so little large-scale testing in American education. Speaking as the house cynic, I would say that's because the Education Establishment knows their ideas are  Inferior and will perform poorly in serious testing.

This article also explores my impression that most of the so-called research in American education is really small sets of students doing small bits of a program. The goal is to build up a scaffolding of apparent proof. Typically, there is no such thing.

http://www.rantrave.com/Rant/Why-no-large-scale-testing-of-American...

John Saxon challenged all the powers that be in education to conduct serious experiments, his textbooks against Reform Math. Nobody would take him up. 

My sense is that we live in a largely illusionary world, where so-called education experts pretend that so-called  education methods actually work. 

Article: Why no large-scale testing of American education ideas?