SarahC:
The academic discipline of "education," as taught in ed schools, is somewhat mysterious to me and doesn't seem to have proven its value. It would be interesting to see if it could be improved on (with actual experimental studies, perhaps?)
The problem is not in the lack of relevant data, of which there are plenty. The problem is how to devise theories that are logically coherent, with some predictive power, and consistent with the data, but also not too far in the ideologically unpalatable territory for mainstream sensibilities (in other words, not sounding like Charles Murray).
I won't jump down your throat here, I'm genuinely curious what these forbidden ideas are. I assume you mean by "sounding like Charles Murray" talking about IQ, and viewing it as (mostly) heritable. Does that tell us anything about how best to educate? Or only about the possible limits of education?
In other words, do you think there are effective education methods whose only drawback is ideological unpalatability?
I want to learn what's well-understood about education. I expect to launch myself into some endeavors in teaching the first few levels of epistemic and instrumental rationality - ie., critical thinking and problem solving. I'm a little suspicious, though, of the scattered educational texts that I've so far read. In particular, education seems like a field where it's easy to have motivated thoughts, and hard to gather good data.
With my background (Math and CS) I'm a little at sea in educational literature. Does anyone know of good, reductionist-grade or evidential-grade, introductory texts in education?