The Knowledge Deficit (Hardcover)

Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children

by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

"We will achieve a just and prosperous society only when schools ensure that everyone commands enough shared knowledge to communicate effectively with everyone else."
— E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

Everybody knows that an achievement gap exists in American schools. Everybody knows that American students do not perform as well on standardized tests as do their peers in other developed countries. But despite dollars spent and bills passed, there is no consensus on how to solve this problem.

In The Knowledge Deficit, noted education expert E. D. Hirsch, Jr., maps a way to close this achievement gap. He first describes the problem: many students, even those who have mastered reading skills early and quite well, begin to slide after fourth grade and fail at more difficult comprehension tasks. Why? Because skills instruction, alone, cannot compensate for lack of background knowledge — for the plenitude of facts and experiences required to understand more complex subjects.

The Knowledge Deficit provides the map for creating a content-rich education that leads to reading mastery and to success on standardized and state tests. It is the culmination of decades of work in which Hirsch has explored these problems in classrooms; researched the latest scientific thinking on the brain's development; compared state, national, and international curricula; and tested his theories in both public and private schools across the country. The one must-read book for American educators today.

ISBN: 978-0-618-65731-5