Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C., and Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University, wrote in "How to Rescue Education Reform" in The New York Times on December 5 that the federal government can and should play a significant role in education reform, but without micromanaging schools. Education researcher Robert Marzano sees it another way. He says effective education reform begins with students and teachers in their classrooms, with student achievement "the superordinate goal, supported by uniform yet flexible behaviors in the classroom." He believes that district and school administrators must ensure that "specific interventions are enacted in every classroom in every school." He has spelled out those interventions in a model built on three critical commitments that he says administrators must make to their students. The first of these commitments is to develop a system of "individual student feedback" at the district, school and classroom levels. Ensuring effective teaching in every classroom, with evaluations of teachers and principals based on "how they make changes in classroom practices directly related to student achievement" is the second commitment of Marzano's reform model. His third reform commitment is to "build background knowledge for all students." [For part II, see EJ969980.]