This paper provides a critical review of the state of the comparative study of educational innovation and reform and proceeds to identify a number of theoretical issues and challenges on which further comparative work is likely to shed additional light. The review portion of the paper deals with the heuristic, political, and theoretical utility of existing comparative work on educational innovation and singles out a number of typologies and generalizations from the literature as particularly significant findings. The second major part of the paper then develops a theoretical agenda that is organized around the issues of knowledge utilization (with special reference to experimental paradigms of reform), the legitimacy of innovation decisions, and the relationship between innovation and conflict. (Author)