I know, right? When my wife mentioned this, that was the first thing I said: there are plenty of fields where the research has life-or-death consequences and th

I know, right? When my wife mentioned this, that was the first thing I said: there are plenty of fields where the research has life-or-death consequences and they use control groups. Education, by comparison, is low stakes. In medical research they have procedures and statistical techniques to detect significant results and allow for early stoppage. There's no reason the same techniques couldn't be applied to education research. But you need control groups, or you don't actually know that you've made an improvement!