The schism in our nation’s schools is threatening a lot more than literacy

I recently attended a town meeting on improving high schools in my home state of New Jersey. A panel informed us that the questions on the High School Proficiency Test—the exam our students must pass to graduate—aren’t any tougher than those asked of seventh graders in other countries. A teacher jumped up, disputing that claim. Even if she was right, I’ve observed vast differences among students in our own nation—and that poses a special problem for people like me who write and edit nonfiction books for young readers.

Consider, for example, some of the reactions to The Real Revolution: The Global Story of American Independence (Clarion, 2005), one of my recent books. During the past year, two seventh-grade social studies classes—one in Washington, DC, the other in New Canaan, CT—were nice enough to read it. From what I’ve heard, neither group had any trouble understanding the book—which makes perfect sense, since it’s intended for seventh graders. In a review in the New York Times Book Review, historian Eric Foner also thought The Real Revolution was a good fit for middle schoolers. But not everyone shares that opinion. In fact, some reviewers and educators have said the book is appropriate only for high school seniors or AP classes.

Obviously, my book isn’t the only one that has recently sparked mixed reactions. Education professors and publishing people who work with schools have told me that even fourth-grade textbooks (which have been carefully “Lexiled” and packed with pictures) are too hard for many children in that grade. There’s no bottom limit, they say, when it comes to basic knowledge and reading skills (much less higher-level comprehension skills), and lots of kids are uncomfortable with social studies content. Some publishers have responded to this crisis by creating nonfiction graphic novels—making written information as visual as possible. That’s a great idea. But if we continue to abandon the written word, what will we give those alert seventh graders who are ready for fresh ideas and challenging materials?

When people talk about a crisis in American education (when they trot out scores comparing America to the rest of the world), they’re missing the real story: our nation has two completely different public school systems. One is desperately treading water, hustling to meet No Child Left Behind’s standards. The other is eagerly aspiring to raise its students to the highest levels. Of course, this split reflects a division in American society: the increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor, between those who are prospering in the global economy and those who are being battered by it.

What does this schism mean to authors and publishers—and to those of you who evaluate books for schools and libraries? For starters… how should publishers shape their books? What’s the right proportion of visual images to text? Should some books sport dual labels—one for seventh graders in elite schools, another for AP students in less vigorous institutions? What page size is best? What type size? How much space should there be between the lines? All of these decisions flow from the reader one has in mind.

Sometimes, I think that publishers would do well if they issued a small list of titles aimed exclusively at those bright, motivated seventh graders. Then publishers could simply hope for the best, accept that many schools will find the books too hard, and limit the number of copies they print to match a smaller readership. That might work as a publishing strategy, but it only underscores our nation’s real problem: we have two distinct school systems, which means that we’re preparing two distinct classes of citizens. And that’s not just a problem for publishers; it’s a danger to our society.