Here’s a quick glimpse of how shared knowledge has been tested scientifically. There are currently some two thousand core knowledge elementary schools, including regular public schools, charter schools, and private schools. These elementary schools and other programs that follow the common-content principle are far outperforming their neighboring schools—and I can now tell you by how much on average. A recent multischool study in Colorado by Professor David Grissmer, a well-
regarded researcher at the University of Virginia, compares the progress of students from first through third grade, with half the children randomly assigned to child-centered schools with personalized curricula, and half with a specific core knowledge curriculum for all the children in the class.
Professor Grissmer drew from a pool of some 1,400 Colorado first graders, whose parents wanted them to attend one of the 120 core
knowledge schools in Colorado. That was too many first graders for too few
schools, so a lottery had to be arranged. There were places for about half the kids. The unlucky other half were left to attend the local district child- centered schools.
All the students in the pool thus had solicitous parents, eliminating the neglectful parent as an element that might distort the results. After three years, Dr. Grissmer reported a verbal-achievement difference between the two groups of more than half a standard deviation favoring1 the knowledge- centered schools, and a difference among the most disadvantaged students of two-thirds of a standard deviation! These are decisive results.2
Lyles-Crouch . . . Continued
Teaching everyone the same topic is a not a complex idea, but it is a brave, heretical one for a principal to advocate in the current intellectual context of American schools. Dr. Zissios demonstrated great courage in disobeying the doctrines set forth by her then superintendent, who cautioned against
“lockstep” education, and urged teachers to develop their students’ “critical thinking skills” and “reading comprehension skills,” just as teachers at most other American schools are urged to do. Dr. Zissios’s new policy
constituted a brave, job-threatening apostasy.
But Dr. Zissios did persuade her teachers to try the new idea. Her school introduced common grade-by-grade content for all. Morale at Lyles-Crouch rose among both students and teachers. Every child was now more or less on the same page, learning a great many interesting things, and feeling a sense of empowerment and fellowship. The gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students diminished. Everybody was having a good time.
The atmosphere at Lyles-Crouch became electric with enthusiasm.
Other local parents with children in expensive private schools heard about the new energy and the new approach of focusing on content rather than practicing skills. Enrollment increased every year—from 110 students in 2004 to 441 as of 2020. The student population is now bursting out of its building, and the school cannot accept more students.
Soon the test scores at Lyles-Crouch rose above those of all other elementary schools in Alexandria, including schools in much more prosperous neighborhoods. It was a remarkable transformation. As Dr. Zissios emailed me in answer to my inquiry:
Over the last three school years, we have outperformed all other schools in the
Alexandria City Public Schools. We have had all scores in the 90th percentile or above.
(In fact, in history, we achieved 99%; one student failed the exam.) Because of our excellent passing rates, over the last ten years, we have been awarded the Virginia Board of Education’s Distinguished Achievement Award (2007–2010; 2012–2016) and Virginia Board of Education’s Award of Excellence (2010–2011, 2016–2017). We have been recognized as a Best School in 2012 and named Top School for 2017 by Northern Virginia magazine. Our current scores put us in the top 5% of the entire Commonwealth of Virginia for academic achievement.
What about the socioeconomic character of the school?
Dr. Zissios wrote:
Today, we have 441 students, 10% ELL [English Language Learners] (mainly
Ethiopians speaking Amharic), 10% special education (with citywide autism class), and 28% living in poverty. We are 55% white, 30% black, 5% Asian/Pacific Islander, 7%
Hispanic, & 3% other. Our mobility rate is 20% due to military families and state department personnel living in our attendance zone.
This socioeconomic diversity and transience (one-fifth of Lyles-Crouch’s students come and go each year) is true of many public schools around the world. It’s a technical handicap, but one that can be overcome by a well- thought-out curriculum that prepares all students in the district for the next step in learning. Moreover, as a nation’s elementary schools become more effective, and the parents of the nation become more literate and
knowledgeable, the next generation will enter school better prepared.
Why haven’t all schools in Alexandria gotten the message? I asked Dr. Zissios: Did her school’s example have any effect on the surrounding schools of the district? This is her emailed answer, which has significant implications for parents and policy makers across the land:
I have found it quite fascinating that our performance year after year puts us at the top of the district, and yet no other school embraces knowledge-based learning. We have local community support. We have been acknowledged by several members of the Alexandria City community at large (including the current Mayor) as being a school to be emulated. Even members of the current Alexandria City Public Schools School Board have admitted that Lyles-Crouch must be doing something right to consistently perform as well as we do. We have not been able to get Central Office administrators (i.e., Superintendent, Chief Academic Officer, Director of Elementary Programs) to try it at other sites. I have offered out my staff and school to help others in the district try it at their schools. No one has taken me up on my offer.
The basic reason that no one has taken up her offer is that the dominant child-centered idea has been so well indoctrinated in teachers-to-be by our
education schools that child-centeredness has wielded an intellectual monopoly. No nefarious motive is needed to explain why “individually appropriate” topics and discovery learning and other naturalistic ideas get almost religious adherence.