The Knowledge Gap

Natalie Wexler traces the slow progress of American school reform to a cause she found only after years inside the reform movement: elementary curricula focused so heavily on reading comprehension skills, taught out of context, that knowledge gets crowded out. Rejecting the usual explanations, such as lazy teachers, poor facilities or weak accountability, she combines history, research and characters to expose a flaw that reformers, journalists and policymakers have overlooked. Wexler also follows educators who are dropping long-held habits and describes students who become eager to learn while gaining knowledge and vocabulary. She ties the problem to a cycle of poverty that spans generations.

Ian Rowe, chief executive of Public Prep Network, endorsed it, saying Wexler shows with real examples that elementary schools must give disadvantaged students the knowledge a society treats as necessary for a full life.