I’m in the midst of a great book by Allan Collins and Richard Halverson titled Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, and they spend about 20 pages writing about why the system is so resistant to change. The bottom line, they say, is that “teaching is an inevitably conservative practice.”
When embedded in institutions that protect instruction from systemic change, a conservative practice is reinforced by a conserving institution. It is difficult for teachers to implement substantially changed programs when they already have dedicated years adapting to what the traditional system of school offers (36).