From April 11-14, the American Educational Research Association will be gathering in Philadelphia for their annual meeting. Given massive learning loss and plunging faith in higher education, the challenges confronting the “world’s largest education research organization” are real. The list of topics calling for rigorous inquiry is staggering: exploding absenteeism, artificial intelligence, the effects of cellphones and social media, chaotic classrooms, the impact of new laws expanding school choice and science-based reading, the cost of college, and the state of free inquiry on campus, to name a few.

There’s much useful research to be done and free-flowing debate that’s needed. Unfortunately, AERA is more interested in progressive jeremiads than in doing such work. This year’s conference is titled “Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action,” and AERA isn’t even trying to elide the politics of the affair. The “Call to Action” title is fitting: It’s very clear that the point of the gathering is to proselytize rather than to ponder.