Lets start by talking about what was your inspiration for writing this book. Guest i had been writing about education Reform Efforts which there were many and i was also somewhat involved in the Reform Movement i was on the board of the Charter School when i became fascinated by what was going on partly because i think education is so important, i think it is our best hope for addressing inequity in society and breaking the cycle of poverty and also intellectually what is interesting to me there was a mystery i wanted to solve essentially which is what happens when kids got to high School Everything seemed to fall apart, school seemed to be improving at the middle school level and i would go into classrooms and the kids looked eager and engaged but when you went to high school classrooms, it was a different picture and the scores were not including. Nobody seemed to understand why. Although theralthough there havt of attention over the years on the high school problem. So, but i stumbl
The education i was on the board of the Charter School became fascinated by what was going on partly because i think education is so important i think it is our best hope for addressing and equity inside it society and breaking that society a multi generational poverty. There was a mystery that i wanted to solve essentially which was what happen when kids got to high School Everything seemed to fall apart scores seem to be improving at the elementary level and i would go into classrooms and the kids either looked engaged but when you went into High School Classrooms it was a different picture and the scores were not improving. Nobody seems to understand why although there has been a lot of attention on the high school problem. When i stumbled upon really, i cant say i solve this mystery myself but i stumbled upon the fact that the real problems in the problems of the parents in high school. Its different than the Elementary School. Once i realized that and i realize that despite all of
Today with natalie to discuss her brandnew book the knowledge gap the hitting cause of the broken Education System and how to fix it. Welcome. Im delighted to be here with you. Tell me about why you wrote this book in your inspiration. I live in dc i was writing about educational Reform Efforts here of which there were many and also somewhat involved in the Education Reform Movement on the board of the Charter School and i became fascinated because i think partly education is so important it is our best hope to address in equity in society to break the cycle of multi generational poverty and what also was interesting to me but there was another story which is what happened when you get to high School Everything falls apart everything approves at the middle school and elementary level to go to the classroom but then in high school its a different picture and the scores were not improving. And i could not understand why although there has been a lot of attention. So what i stumbled upon
The kids all looked eager and engage that when we went to High School Classrooms it was a different picture. No one seems to understand why but there has been a lot of attention on this high School Problem so i stumbled upon and i cant say i solve this mystery myself i stumbled upon the fact that the problems that become so apparent in high school is the way we teach in Elementary School. Can you describe for people who were not usually knowing what is a content rich curriculum look like . Guest first of all it focuses on content rather than comprehension, reading comp should mention comp ranch and skills which really is a universal approach in this country to Elementary Education. He spent a lot of time on reading especially in highstakes math test 20 years ago now and reading that kids are doing is not designed to build their knowledge of that or anything in particular. The ideas idea is to get them to master skills like finding a main idea or making an inference and the theory is he
My home local, new york city, today is the first day of school for those kids, so i am wishing them the best year, even though its 95 degrees heat, which is always a problem everywhere when you dont have air conditioning, but i think whats happened is the same problems that afflict the nation afflict schools because schools are a melting pot of everything going on in the nation, the salad bowl, whatever you want to say. We deal with everything thats going on. So the division, the hate, the disinformation, is all really hard to overcome when what we should be doing in schools is having a welcome environment and ensuring every school, every public school, is a place parents want to send their kids, Educators Want to work and kids thrive. Theres a lot of effects of covid as well as position and inequities and climate issues that we have to deal with. Loneliness, learning loss. The disconnection that kids still feel. And so it makes it much harder when teachers are underpaid and overworked