For decades, and perhaps longer if you follow Larry Cuban, we have been trying to improve education worldwide. We have been inventing new plans, curricula, professional development formats, and structures. Every few years, another big solution seems to arrive. Yet one thing remains surprisingly constant: in many schools, far less changes than you might expect. I often explain this by saying you can’t close schools for two years to redesign everything from scratch. Sometimes it feels like trying to replace a flat tyre while you’re still driving. One thing I know for sure: it’s rarely because teachers are stubborn or leaders refuse to move. But a new systematic review offers another set of explanations: schools operate as something far more enduring than a typical organisation. They are institutions.

That may sound theoretical, but it’s actually very simple. Institutions are systems built on deeply embedded beliefs, routines and structures. Things so taken for granted that nobody even thinks to question them. Age-based grade levels, the long summer break, the 8-to-3 school day, the way we teach, how we assess, how we organise classrooms. We once saw all of these as logical solutions to earlier challenges. However, they slowly became “the way things must be done.” Once something becomes normal, it’s only a small step before it becomes the only acceptable way. The familiar grammar of schooling is why Cuban is relevant here.

This is precisely why so many reforms collide with invisible walls. Policymakers can introduce new rules, research centres can develop new frameworks, and schools can attend training sessions. But once these ideas land in the everyday life of a school, they run directly into other forces. Habits. Professional norms. Parent expectations. Bureaucratic processes. Market logics around choice and accountability. The culture of a staff shaped by years of experience. These forces pull in different directions, sometimes contradict each other, and often restore the familiar status quo.

The extensive review study by Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell and Soojung Lee illustrates this beautifully. They analysed 147 studies on school improvement and found the same pattern again and again. Reforms are accompanied by countless small decisions made by people trying to do what they see as workable and sensible. They interpret policy through their own experiences, routines and beliefs. Further, they will adapt it to what colleagues value. They seek legitimacy in what the field considers normal or wise. Not out of bad intentions, but because this is what it means to live inside an institution. The result is that many innovations turn out to be far less innovative than they appeared on paper.

It’s important to note: this does not make change impossible. But it does explain why it often moves more slowly than we hope. Real change emerges when different logics start reinforcing each other rather than competing. When what policy asks aligns with what professionals believe. Suppose society looks in the same direction. And when bureaucratic structures stop blocking and start supporting. And if we give small local experiments enough time to mature. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. It is precisely why some reforms eventually take root while others disappear without leaving much behind.

This study mainly shows that education doesn’t change slowly because people don’t want to change. But because education is built for stability. That can be frustrating, but it also protects schools from fads and rushed interventions. If we want sustainable innovation, we need to look beyond what could be improved. We also need to pay attention to how the system’s own logics, routines and assumptions can shift with it. Only then will policy change turn into actual practice.