Practically anything written for a lay audience is going to be worse than useless. Most of what's written about education for a general audience is motivated by politics, rather than by a search for truth. Worse, much (most?) of the academic community studying education has picked up a lot of what I deem anti-epistemology, especially the primacy of stories over statistics.

My enthusiasm for this project waned, and I never did get to much sound research. In reflection, though, I'm sure such research exists. If I was to try again, I'd start by considering the ways that various research disciplines in educational psychology reach their conclusions; and then read in those disciplines that seem sane.