From the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy, a passionate and cogent argument for reforming the way we teach our childrenWhy, after decades of commissions, reforms, and efforts at innovation, do our schools continue to disappoint us?  In this comprehensive and thought-provoking book, educational theorist E. D. Hirsch, Jr. offers a masterful analysis of how American ideas about education have veered off course, what we must do to right them, and most importantly why. He argues that the core problem with American education is that educational theorists, especially in the early grades, have for the past sixty years rejected academic content in favor of “child-centered” and “how-to” learning theories that are at odds with how children really learn.