April 4, 2012 8:42AM 

# ‘A Confident Person with Shiny Teeth’ 

By [Andrew J. Coulson](https://www.cato.org/people/andrew-coulson) 

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“Sometimes people just want to hear a confident person with shiny teeth tell them appealing stories about the secrets to success.”

So writes Jay Greene in [his debunking of Marc Tucker’s education reform book ](http://educationnext.org/best-practices-are-the-worst/)*[Surpassing Shanghai](http://educationnext.org/best-practices-are-the-worst/)*. Jay’s whole review is worth reading, but the basic point is simple: you can’t learn much about the systemic causes of success if you only look at a single success story or even at a small handful of them. You need to cast a wide net to detect meaningful patterns. Having spent a lot of time casting wide nets, into both the [historical](http://www.amazon.com/Market-Education-Unknown-History-Philosophy/dp/1560004088/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt) and [modern](https://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/coulson_comparing_public_private_market_schools_jsc.pdf) evidence, I couldn’t agree more. But maybe Jay would just tell me that’s confirmation bias ;-)

\[HT: Bill Evers\]

##### Related Tags 

[Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) 

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