Dr. Foshay presents sweeping criticisms of everyone from researchers to colleges of education to software publishers. I'd just like to comment on his criticism of software publishers.
The latter, just like book publishers, are in the business of making money by selling as many copies of their products as possible. But they have no more ability to judge the instructional effectiveness of their products than textbook publishers have to judge the instructional effectiveness of their products. Few textbook publishers conduct research on the success of student learning with their products before publishing them. The same is true of software publishers.
Although I have been informed by one of the most successful software publishers in history that they do not care a whit whether their products are really educational (even while claiming in their advertising that they are), let us assume that software publishers really do believe there is money to be made by publishing products that are instructionally effective (that is, that their profits will increase in proportion to the instructional effectiveness of their products). To whom should they then turn for guidance? Should they turn to academics or researchers for answers?
So, having found fault with everyone, what exactly does Dr. Foshay propose as a solution?