Education reform comes fraught with questions. How do we distinguish between exciting, new ideas and costly, ineffective fads? Where can policymakers and practitioners work better together? What can be done to make heated, partisan debates more productive?

Education policy expert Rick Hess has spent a quarter of century working in and around school reform. In a discussion of his upcoming book Letters to a Young Education Reformer, he examines the challenges and reflects on where reformers have stumbled and how they can succeed.

Hess is the resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and author of the popular Education Week blog Rick Hess Straight Up. The presentation is co-presented by the Show-Me Institute.