Two indications stand out: a
misfocus on changing student traits and dispositions rather than teaching specific skills, and the prevalence of "policy-based evidence making," that is, the tendency to cherry-pick studies and disregard methodological quality in order to support a policy that one already favors.
If you think blogs offer a useful corrective to the
misfocus of the mainstream media in the United States, consider the case of Cuba, where government newspapers (that is, all of them) were enthusiastically reporting that potato harvests had exceeded their quotas at the time Pinar del Rio's women were reinventing the gynecology of the fourteenth century.
Outside a central 24-mm-diameter circle, stars elongate into streaks due to coma and astigmatism, and expand due to
misfocus. These effects, however, even at the extreme corners of the frame, were well contained and might not be visible on small prints or by casual examination.
Much of the debate going on tends not only to
misfocus the issues but to some great extent water them down.
To underline his points about the
misfocus in development economics, Haq begins his book chapters with an apposite quotation from Alice in Wonderland.
The indices can be indicative of fundamental problems such as over- or under-emphasis,
misfocus of effort, or misuse of resources, and should be used as warning lights to indicate when a long, hard look at your I/S function is due.