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January 19, 2007
Puzzles vs. mysteries
One of the blogs that I read daily is called The Quick and the Ed, an education blog written by the policy staff of Education Sector. Yesterday, I read this piece by Kevin Carey (which was itself a response to this New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell) about the difference between mysteries and puzzles - and how that distinction affects the work of policy researchers and think tanks.
Gladwell cited national-security expert Gregory Treverton's distrinction between puzzles and mysteries: puzzles are solvable by gathering the right information, but mysteries don't have a "simple, factual answer." He writes: "Mysteries require judgments and the assessment of uncertainty, and the hard part is not that we have too little information but that we have too much."
Carey's essay applies those ideas to the work of think tanks like Education Sector:
On some level, the same kind of thing is happening in public policy. There's a lot we don't know about education. But we certainly know much more know than we ever knew before. Formulating good policy, therefore, is increasingly becoming a function of making sense of the information we have, not finding new information to consider. In other words, solving mysteries instead of puzzles.
I was glad to read these essays, because they helped me make sense of a question that I am often asked about the work of the Citizens League - especially with regards to education policy: With all the research that's being done, the white papers that are being put out, the "blueprints for better education" that candidates hype, what do we have to offer?
What we offer is a process that puts to use the skills, perspectives and energy of citizens who do the hard work of solving mysteries. As a staff member, I can pull together the "puzzle pieces" (white papers [including our past work], blueprints and research conducted in a wide variety of institutions), but it is the work of our study committees that draws out the most important findings from these resources, debates their ideas and develops conclusions about them, and works together to come up with recommendations.
Posted by Victoria Ford at January 19, 2007 9:48 AM
Comments
Victoria, I think education issues are constantly moving targets that the League is in a perfect position to address, both short-term and long-term. My family has been the beneficiary of the latter... the early work the League did on public school choice (charters, open enrollment, PSEOs).
This week's short-term targets include Gov. Pawlenty's PK-12 plans as well as his remarks about our high schools being obselete.
And Mitch Perlstein's commentary piece in the Strib on vouchers certainly deserves some reaction.
I'd love to see the League lead the discussion on these... maybe not taking a position, but just helping to increase the depth of understanding.
Posted by: Griff Wigley | January 19, 2007 1:20 PM
Griff -
I agree - and your timing couldn't be better. In the next couple weeks we are going to launch an Education Working Group. The goals of this group will be to develop more institutional memory around our past education work and the capacity to respond to issues that come up (like Mitch's commentary and the Governor's proposals).
We're going to start recruiting volunteers to sit on that working group soon. Look for more info here (and in our email digest)...
Posted by: Victoria | January 19, 2007 2:11 PM