The quality of Doug’s commentaries is always top notch, and that is certainly the case here. So why are the scientifically substantiated programs not used, since they are clearly delineated and proven to work? The answer is straightforward. There are no consequences brought to bare on teachers or administrators for failing to teach students. In fact, failure is regularly blamed on the students themselves. We hear that students lack motivation, or are behaviorally disordered, or from low SES families, or ….the list goes on. Schools never say that they failed to do their job which is teaching all children. Why? Because they do not have to. Pay checks continue to come, even if half of students in a class do not master the set of skills targeted by a “unit.” To be fair to teachers with twenty or thirty students in a class. If it is important that the progress of each student is clear, the typical school model is insufficient to meet that goal. How would it be were a hospital organized in a similar way. Doctors would be saying that they lost several of their patients, because they were too sick to cure, when the truth is that the doctor was unable to give them the care, the attention, they needed. So the medical model provides doctors with support personnel to help administer what is needed for every individual. Yes, there is Special Education, which is based on handicaps, but it is clearly not enough to prevent the existing systemic failure. Tragically, as long as education deficiencies can blamed on the kids, there will be no change. As long as education fails to keep track of each and every child’s progress in detail and develops adequate ways to treat the problems, the current situation will not change.