Education Reform Efforts and involved in the Education Reform Movement and the Charter Schools i was fascinated partly because education is so important and it is our best hope to address inequities in society of multi generational poverty but there was a mystery i wanted to solve is what happened when kids go to high school and falls apart and then i will go to classrooms but in the High School Classrooms its a different picture and scores were not improving to understand this problem. So what i stumbled upon i cannot say i solve the mystery myself but i stumbled upon the fact that the real problem that have become so apparent in high school so once i realized all of the research i had done with those Panel Discussions i had never heard the mention of the problem that somebody had to try to get that issue into the Public Education communication because that is a problem we are talking about we cannot fix them unless we address that problem. Can you describe for people who are not usually in classrooms that content rich curriculum look like quick. First of all it focuses on content rather than comprehension which which is almost universal approach to Elementary Education. Especially since i speak on highstakes media a few years ago now so the what they are reading is not designed to go around anything in particular that you get them to master skills like an idea or making the inference with the theory you could apply that with what is in front of you but the problem is scientist have studied learning have known for decades the most important factor if you can understand what you are reading is not the skills but how much background knowledge you have of the topic so with reading comprehension it should be the opposite of what we are doing but increasing timeline social studies and science and expand their knowledge of the world rather than limiting them from the curriculum and then spending time on the skills which is a different way to build kill one kids knowledge. But but they all have in common is they focus on topics rather than on skills and reading out loud because kids can take and so much more information really through middle school on average that the concept and the vocabulary in the syntax is more complex than any spoken language so when they can read independently they understand. Talk about how the teachers job is different when they are teaching content rich curriculum versus skills. It could look more challenging to teachers because the teaching skills all you have to do is a mini lesson then model the skill if you read a book not chosen for the content but for how well i can lend itself to demonstrate the modeling the skill to compare and contrast to determine the authors purpose that then you just have to read the book and say this phrase maybe that is the main idea is coming up a lot. Or this character tries to do this and then you just provide the kids with books with their own individual reading level and then they practice that skill. Doesnt require a lot of content knowledge on the teachers part but really a lot of the effort the hard work to building children of knowledge but the content classroom using that curriculum the teacher will focus on whatever topic that it covers Elementary Teachers are basically expected to design their own curriculum and that is placed on teachers that are already juggling so many things they should be focused on how best to deliver that content not just come up from scratch they are not trained to do that so content focused classroom ideally the teacher would be presided provided curriculum topics or readings may be spent a couple of weeks on a topic organized around that topic that you read aloud to kids are sometimes on their own depending on their reading ability and i think having been in those classrooms they find that experience much more engaging and satisfying. Host it gives kids a chance to explore what they are interested in. This is when you discover whether or dinosaurs or whatever. And they discover things they didnt know they were interested in. There is that prevailing thought we should let them choose what they want to study and that is in the teacher training if you let them pursue their interest and there is a place for that but those that are coming into School Without a lot of knowledge they dont know yet there is a lot of topics they could get interested in i have seen a kid fascinated by greek mythology. They knew nothing about greek mythology and is it something they encounter in their daily lives but they love it they are interested. Host i come by the argument kids should be exposed to content rich curriculum. There in the fourth grade i fell in love with greek mythology. We were not talking about that at the dinner table in my home. But i am curious how you grapple with the question of who determines what content should be taught . There are a lot of challenges to understand who decides what kids should learn so i want to pick your brain on that who gets to decide . That question comes up a lot and it is very good but i would say that we already make those decisions at the high school curriculum. Somehow they can decide what they should learn. If we wait until high school to implement those decisions many kids dont have the background knowledge when they get to high school to understand what we want them to learn they are. If we can make those decisions were High School Kids why cant we make them for elementary to make sure they are able to learn what we want them to learn in high school . There are ways to build knowledge i dont think we have to make value judgments about one being better than another but what do we want kids to kno know . Are to understand the news and make informed decisions . Maybe there are cultural references or information we need them to know about history or other countries without that knowledge they are at a serious disadvantage in high school or college or beyond. One of the challenges parents had ideas what they want their children to be taught especially when it comes to young people love color representation to see themselves in history a lot of times that content rich curricula that we see does not include marginalized from the western civilization piece is there a role for parents and those who are worried about their kids to see themselves in the curriculum, what role do they have to play . Parents do have a role to play but they also want their children to be successful in society. So i think that if they understand there is a certain body of knowledge to understand the world around them is not original to me but there is a mirror and a window. So it gives you information with your life and ethnicity and heritage and this is true for all groups of students but a window into other cultures that is a wider world but you want to know whats going on with them. So the good news is we dont spend that precious time on the comprehension skills we have a lot of time for that window. You are absolutely right we have to walk and chew gum at the same time and we can but i am convinced it takes a larger group of people than has previously been the case and it was fascinating to work with the parent cabinet when i was chancellor of the dc schools they had very clear ideas that they wanted their young people to learn. And far too often we discount those abilities so my hope is as School Leaders think about this they look at real partners. There is potential. In urging to the skills focused approach and then talk about which knowledge building approach they trust schools and teachers for what to do to prepare kids academically. I didnt look too closely but they seemed happy in Elementary School. They did have great experiences but one thing they were not getting was history because of a wide spread view it was a developmentally inappropriate topic for Young Children but there was just no evidence. Kids love history it can present those stories and they love that but with the background as a historian i did not even question that they were not getting that at school. But that they may not even know but if more parents and the general public than the vast majority added to the correspondence and how they learn to be up in arms. You talk about reading and writing and a content rich curriculum makes a difference in both subjects. The National Math scores are not so much better. So i wonder if you diagnose that differently to propose Different Solutions . Im not an expert whats going on in math. I do feel quite different from literacy but i had been told the math test doesnt always correspond what is taught at a particular grade level. But what i have seen for literacy can interfere and kids will do much better what allows them but three those classrooms if they were pressed for literacy both of these were seeing from low income communities and then to observe the literacy and i thought that i drove here. And im really glad i did because i am trying to work on math problems i found those issues not just reading better vocabulary issues were interfering with the ability to do math. One child did not understand the word combine eight and three. And then another child had a real problem what number comes before 84 . I eventually realized he did not understand the word before. The literacy problems affect beyond just literacy. How did we get here . [laughter] and that is the reason i wrote the book as a historian and wanted to figure out that frankly is somebody outside the Education World doesnt make sense on the common sense level you talk about what the book was about or the authors purpose and i would like to piece this together but i do say over the last 100 years from the Progressive Education Movement and the central tenet of that movement is it better for children to discover or construct their own knowledge . And there is some truth to that. And that they should discover those for themselves especially without a lot of knowledge of the world. The way that it flows into this that teachers feel they are providing children with the skills down the road they are not dumping information and so that mindset has a Fertile Ground to take hold but there are some more recent developments that intensified that beginning with the advent of highstakes testing. Those which have become the yardstick by which we measure progress, they measure reading comprehension skills. To make an inference. So we just need to double down overlooking the fact that they dont have the background knowledge to understand the reading passages in the first place they make inferences in their lives all the time toddlers do but thats not the problem so much as the knowledge and vocabulary to understand a passage and that could be a big problem that has been overlooke overlooked. You spend a lot of time talking about teachers but not on colleges of education but they feel that they have to teach the tool that the fact they made decisions about what teachers are learning they were conspicuously absent some i want to understand the role that they play. I think it is hugely important but basically yes teacher training is at the root of these problems but im not casting blame it is partly the result of a divergence that goes a long way from education on one hand and academia on the other and to teach concepts of developmental psychology and how these are outdated and superseded by others so it is partly a lack of a different mindset and what Research Means and suspicion and scientific methods that a psychologist might use and that preference to trust your own observations in the classroom. So they may be somewhat dismissive theres been a lot of research with the reading process and background knowledge they can also teach more efficiently they are unaware of those developments because they think of those scientist to be in the ivory tower not understanding whats going on in the classroom. Need the perspective of the practitioner but also what is very helpful evidence of how children learn. But that lack of communication has shifted the entire burden on the employer. We call that professional development. We have to teach people, as a former School District leader, teach people what they are not being taught in schools. So one question is how do you get the psychologist so they can take some of the burden off of the districts . I will address that but its not impossible for teachers to learn on the job professional development has not been very effective but with that Elementary Education with those disconnected skills how do you develop Critical Thinking when you teach greek mythology or the civil war . That will be much more helpful in teachers often because the way the curricula is oriented about history without undergraduate degree. And a good curriculum to say i have learned so much history from language arts. But you are right but teachers should be trained before the into the classroom. And to be trained in pedagogical techniques and there are some signs on the horizon with those of teacher Training Programs with the signs of cognitive science. And then to have content taught well there is research that shows in with that expertise and with that content knowledge you dont see that manifest until high school because thats actually when you take content specific courses. And with departmentalization and then people tell us we are crazy for having one teacher responsible for everything of math and science and in cases where we could separate. I dont thank you are crazy but it is the chicken and egg because if we have Elementary School curriculum we dont expect them to teach content which is below fourthgrade. And why we provide that but we should be expecting that and with that departmentalization if you have one teacher who is responsible english and social studies that puts the pressure to lead this course because now to double down on those comprehensive skills so they dont cover the social studies but the skills are in the foreground. Host so what will it take for us to move the way we are currently teaching, to a more content rich knowledgebased way of teaching as the norm . It is a multi pronged effort. Not just from the top down because teachers are not in a position to adopt curriculum for an entire school or district. They can only do so much but if it is only imposed from above without teachers understanding why, then it probably will not get into the classroom. Emotional obstacles and habitual teaching even if you want to switch to a different way of teaching it is adding sure you know a very complex activity. I am in all of teachers. A teacher conducted at the westin. In that situation it easy to revert to take time and often be the opportunity to corroborate and compare their experiences and also one more thing which is we havent really talked about this, we talked about a little bit of testing i think it is very hard for teachers to get this message that they need to focus on content when they feel their performance in schools performance is going to be evaluated on the basis of the test of skills. I know the administrators feel theyve given them the message the way to raise test scores is to build knowledge and not to focus on the skills. But they havent been able to hear that. They are still looking at whats going to enable them to do well on their test. I agree that its a multipronged approach that there are so many Different Things that contribute to why this doesnt happen from the teacher buyin to the professional development of two which curriculum folks have two whatever else and i want to spend a little bit of time talking about the teacher buyin. You say if we just get to the content rich curriculum this is the answer, like this is the thing that is going to move us and you arent really challenging when we tried to, when we move to a content rich curriculum at the public schools, we had to change everything from how the day was structured to help teachers were being professionally developed to how we figured out the call intent of knowledge because you need to do both to pushing back against a union who said teachers should be able to decide what they want to do, to the state system are federal Education System that sometimes so what we were trying to do and some things didnt so there are all of these as you rightly say in the book including teachers just need to understand i will never forget having a conversation where the word like listen, you keep getting all these random things. You said you needed to first understand what the expectations were so we laid this out and you said okay now that you know how we want you to teach, you wanted to talk about whats because it wasnt consistent and it wasnt rigorous or engaging so we work with you to develop curriculum and i just told the story. That all makes sense. So thats the communication around the steps also huge. You dont talk about moving any sort of structures in the education galaxy. I had 30,000 words. Its really for the general reader and i know that this is more complicated than just adapting a content rich curriculum. There is no one thing that will fix education. This is what people want, they want to read this book and how to fix it. If i just do this one thing, it will move. I wilbut i will say there are or things we need to do other than the ones you were even talking about. We have to make sure kids have enough to eat but i will say that if we dont address this curriculum issue, none of those other things are going to move the needle when it comes to breaking the cycle of the multigenerational poverty. And yes you are right it is complicated. It has to do with engaging teachers and work of the kids in the louisiana one of the things they bring is to rate the different curriculum that are out there and train them to understand what makes one curriculum better than another and they go back to their districts and schools and spread the word, and it becomes less topdown. There are so many initiatives especially in urban schools that are sort of here and now we are doing this and teachers develop a kind of resistance. But if they hear it coming from a colleague rather than an administrator its not going to happen overnight. Be found awe found the same c then we i think the first thing people want to do is buy a content rich curriculum, but we felt like our teachers