andreweverett360 Book Review, Nonprofit

The Knowledge Gap


The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System — and How to Fix It
by Natalie Wexler

I have been seeing a steady flow of articles about the stunted literacy among high school graduates and college students.* Wexler’s excellent reportage indirectly points to a root cause: flawed reading pedagogy in elementary school. In a nutshell, the book explains the dire consequences of the shift from phonics-based reading instruction to “whole language” (aka “balanced literacy”) methods which focus on reading “skills” independent of content.

Aside from this prevailing method being unsupported by cognitive science—and never mind that the whole point of reading is to comprehend meaning—it creates a compounding problem in other subjects like science, history, and civics because students acquire knowledge and understanding by building on existing knowledge. So, if the seeds aren’t planted in elementary school, high school teachers have no foundation to build upon.

Chapter 11 makes me wonder if the mind-boggling surge in learning disability diagnoses* may be explained, in part, by the trend toward ineffective reading instruction, that is to say reading inabilities rather than cognitive disabilities.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Nonprofit

Agency


Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for All Children to Overcome the Victimhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power
by Ian V. Rowe

Neil Postman posed this question about public schools: “What kind of public does it create?” Ian Rowe addresses that pertinent question, arguing they are doing a disservice both to students and society, and offers a vision for getting back on track.

The author’s background will provide some context. Rowe immigrated to the United States from Jamaica with his parents and brother in 1968. He attended public schools in New York City, then earned an engineering degree from Cornell and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He worked on postsecondary education philanthropy at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was an executive in charge of public service campaigns for MTV. He then served as CEO of charter elementary schools in the South Bronx for 10 years before cofounding Vertex Partnership Academies charter high schools.

WHAT IS AGENCY? “My short definition is that it is the force of your free will guided by moral discernment. It is the force that closes the delta between… what is and what ought to be. It is the conviction that we are active players in our own story… Agency is learning to see ourselves not as victims of our circumstances, but rather as architects of our own better futures, and to do so even in the face of real obstacles.”

“However—and this is key—no human being acts alone. Agency is individually practiced, yet socially empowered.”

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