I’ve previously shared a fare amount about attribution error and schools (see The Best Posts & Articles To Learn About “Fundamental Attribution Error” & Schools).

Justin Baeder described it this way in his Education Week blog:

…the idea that we tend to erroneously conflate actions (and our interpretation of them) with personal characteristics. Instead of concluding that a teacher isn’t very good, perhaps we should look at how many different subjects the teacher has to prepare for, how much planning time they actually have, how many reforms and disruptions they have to deal with, and so on.

Larry Cuban has just wrote another nice piece on the concept headlined The Attribution Error and School Reform.

Here’s an excerpt: