19 May Beware of Consultants
Thomas R. Guskey
‘That Was a Mistake’: The Education Ideas That Teachers Learned to Reject”
with Larry Ferlazzo. May 15, 2026.
I used to believe that changes in education policies and practices were guided mainly by the work of dedicated education scholars and researchers. Today, I am convinced that change is influenced most by education consultants. And while education consultants are generally good people who offer a valuable service, most ignore the extensive knowledge base in education established by the brilliant scholars and researchers who came before them.
Coming to education without formal training in the field, I learned about education primarily through graduate coursework. My professors emphasized the critical importance of studying foundational texts written by influential scholars whose research established our current understanding of effective teaching and learning. Our required readings included works by educational pioneers like John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, Lev Vygotsky, Ralph Tyler, Benjamin Bloom, Jerome Bruner, and others.
My professors also stressed that a rigorous, comprehensive literature review must precede any scholarly writing or thesis development. This practice guarantees that new ideas build on education’s established knowledge base. It also ensures that new authors are contributing to that knowledge base and moving our field forward, rather than simply redescribing established principles with new terminology.
Although that may have been true in the past, it is certainly not true today. The book lists of the most popular education publishers today include few works by established scholars or researchers. Instead, they are dominated by books by education consultants. Despite the fact that most of these consultant-authors hold advanced degrees in education – credentials that required them to conduct systematic literature reviews for their theses or dissertations – most have abandoned this foundational scholarly practice in their published work.
As a result, old ideas are constantly being rediscovered, renamed, and unknowingly credited to popular conference speakers and consultant-authors. This was confirmed for me during a presentation to a large audience at a recent national education conference. I asked the educational leaders in attendance if they knew from whose work I took the following quotes: “Learning depends on the connections we make between our present and past experiences,” and “All experiences are carried forward and influence future experiences?”
Participants quickly named a dozen consultant-authors who advocate cognitive science, brain-based learning, and culturally responsive education. Not a single person recognized that these quotes were taken directly from John Dewey’s classic book, Experience and Education, published in 1938!
This obliviousness to the established knowledge base in education and the work of the brilliant scholars and researchers who came before us thwarts meaningful progress in education. Instead of steadily moving forward, building on what was learned in the past, and furthering that understanding as is done in other social sciences, progress in education is best described as a pendulum that goes nowhere but simply swings back and forth between competing trends and fads.
When asked what research supports their ideas or contentions, some consultants respond by asking what research supports practitioners’ current policies and practices. But this, “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine” response not only diminishes the level of conversation, it casts doubt on the idea that education can be a steadily advancing, evidence-based profession.
Isaac Newton wrote, “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” We have significant giants in the field of education – brilliant men and women whose ideas and research brought new meaning to education and furthered our understanding of teaching and learning. True progress in education will be made only by recognizing their contribution, acknowledging that we stand on their shoulders, and extending their remarkable work.
Education is a dynamic field with an established knowledge base built by outstanding scholars and researchers. Progress in education will be slow and improvement elusive if we continue to ignore their extraordinary work. So instead, let’s recognize their accomplishments, acknowledge their contributions, build upon and extend what they developed to deepen our own understanding, so that we can improve education policies and practices at every level.
Thomas R. Guskey, Ph.D., is professor emeritus in the College of Education,
University of Kentucky. He is the author/editor of 30 books and over 300 published
articles on professional learning, assessment, evaluation, grading, and reporting,
and may be contacted at guskey@uky.edu.
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