system could be viewed as legitimate and which suspect. Once one had some system that was empowered to establish the important purposes of the educational system at the individual and social level, to evaluate performance in those terms, to encourage innovations and experiments that could plausibly improve performance, to judge whether the innovations and experiments were successful or not, and to encourage the adoption of the new and the abandonment of the old, one has essentially created a system that has a monopoly on legitimacy as well as performance. The system has the standing to define public value in education, and to say what practices are consistent with producing that value, and, either implicitly or explicitly, to define the legitimacy of any educational provider in the system. Such a system would have a great deal of power to influence the practices of national educational system even though that system consisted of many different educational suppliers, users, and evaluators in different positions. Indeed, in a system where things seemed undisciplined, unfocused, indifferent to results, and out of control, it would be reassuring to think that we could organize the complex system through a process that united government with professionalism and with science to make steady progress while preventing frauds from entering the production system. As long as the coalition of government, professionals and science could be relied upon to act for the overall public good using the best available knowledge even as we kept testing and searching for better, that system could work as desired. But it should also be obvious that if this system ever became dominated by the existing status quo, and the powers of institutional mimesis, it could become a significant obstacle to change. Instead of challenging the status quo, it would support it. Instead of testing it, it would keep certifying it. Etc. (Rolleston, 2016)

######## Critical Functions and Potential Weaknesses in the GSCRD System

Naturally, this puts a great deal of pressure on the imagination, integrity, accuracy, and speed on the parts of the system that are actively working on evaluating and improving the system rather than supporting the status quo. This, after all, is the part of the system that constitutes the “growth plate” for the system as a whole, and will improve its future. But that implies that the dynamic part of the system has to be the boldest part, and to take on the biggest and most stubborn problems in the national educational system. And it is here that this system might have the greatest problems.

- 1) It might not be bold enough in taking on the largest institutional and performance problems facing the system (e.g. ensuring a minimum quality of performance across the system as a whole; finding effective means for reducing large, persistent differences in academic achievement associated with race, economic class, and geographic location; successfully integrating immigrant populations; developing an adequate response to persistent educational achievement differences across race, class; etc.
- 2) It might not have enough standing or knowledge to have an impact on these big problems (the social and political support/demand for educational performance might be too weak or too spotty to allow sustained, significant pressures to improve across the system as a whole; there