It’s the 50th anniversary of the legendary Coleman Report, as George Will discusses today in the Washington Post. Will summarizes what experts in 1966 believed about education, and what additional experience revealed:

The consensus then was that the best predictor of a school’s performance was the amount of money spent on it: Increase financial inputs, and cognitive outputs would increase proportionately. As the postwar baby boom moved through public schools like a pig through a python, almost everything improved — school buildings, teachers’ salaries, class sizes, per-pupil expenditures — except outcomes measured by standardized tests.

Andrew Coulson put that key fact in a handy chart:

Politicians, experts, and the education establishment still aren’t willing to accept the lesson demonstrated by this chart.

But if money doesn’t work, what does? Coleman emphasized cultural factors, notably strong families. Coulson believed that schools could improve, and that competition could help us discover best educational practices. This fall, public television stations will broadcast his documentary asking why educational innovations are so rarely tested and replicated.