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The argument about 21st-century skills is heating up, with critics issuing a volley of op-eds and press releases warning against a disastrous retreat from academic content knowledge. In the hands of the national media, this debate might well amplify the phony opposition between knowledge and skills--and that's bad news for everyone.

The debate itself is substantive and complex. After all, the relationship between knowledge and skills is hardly simple, and that fact has profound implications for teaching and learning.

Unfortunately, many national commentators on education don't have much stomach for nuance, so we should probably brace ourselves for some well-worn caricatures. Any defender of content knowledge will be a soulless drone who traffics in facts the way a hardware salesman traffics in bolts or hinges. Any 21st-century skills proponent will be a wild-eyed revolutionary who yearns to toss centuries of human knowledge onto the bonfires.

Some of these caricatures are already appearing in editorial pages of major newspapers. That's too bad, because they risk derailing important ...

NEA's Read Across America is less than a week away. What better occasion to republish our interview with leading children's author (and former teacher) Jon Scieszka, the nation's first "National Ambassador for Young People's Literature?" We first published this interview on March 6, 2008.

Even with a name that's murder to spell and downright painful to type, Jon Scieszka has become one of the nation's most celebrated and beloved children's book authors--and he has recently added a new honor to his store: In January, the Library of Congress named him the nation's first Ambassador for Children's Literature. But with honor comes great responsibility. Scieszka, who has sold more than 11 million books worldwide, will spend his term reaching out to children, parents and teachers as a missionary for reading.

As part of our celebration of NEA's Read Across America, we were lucky enough to speak with Jon about his ambassadorial duties, his long-term efforts to encourage more children to read, and some of his forthcoming projects.

The man who wrote The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs (as told from the Wolf's perspective) focused on his concern that boys in particular are becoming ever more reluctant readers.

He offered several thoughts for turning boys on to reading:

• Give them greater choice in what they read--Reading shouldn't be a bitter pill;
• Give them more male role models who read for pleasure;
• Don't demonize electronic media. Use those media to support boys' reading;

Scieszka has been actively promoting this agenda through Guys Read, a literacy program and website that aims to "motivate boys to read by connecting them with materials they will want to read, in ways they like to read."

By the way, it rhymes with "Fresca".

[Listen to about four minutes of highlights from this interview - you can read a transcript of those highlights below. You can also click here for the full 17-minute version.]

Or, if you'd like, you can choose ...

The Honorable Lee Hamilton represented Indiana’s 9th congressional district for over three decades. After leaving Congress, he co-chaired the Iraq Study Group and served as Vice-Chair of the 9/11 Commission.

Now president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and director of Indiana University's Center on Congress, he sits or has sat on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council, the FBI Director’s Advisory Board, the CIA Director’s Economic Intelligence Advisory Panel, and the Defense Secretary’s National Security Study Group.

A life of public service has fueled Representative Hamilton's commitment to civics education, a commitment he honors as co-chair of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. Representative Hamilton recently sat down with us for an interview on the significance of civic education at a time of political change and economic upheaval.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: I've heard you say--or rather, write--that you have found a lot of young Americans don't necessarily know what it means to be American. They haven't really thought it over. I was wondering if you could describe the implications of what that means and what schools might be able to do about it.

HAMILTON: I think a representative democracy depends on an educated citizenry. It's very important that not only homes--parents--but also schools take on the responsibility of assuring that young people know how to become good citizens and they learn the attributes of good citizenship: Involvement in their community, listening to their friends and neighbors, trying to solve problems, reach a consensus, discuss, and to get a sense of democracy into their bones. So that they recognize that the question that Lincoln asked, whether this nation, so conceived and so dedicated, could long endure, is answered affirmatively.

I'm very concerned about what's happening today in our schools. You see so much emphasis upon math and science, and I'm certainly not opposed to that. We need that emphasis. But in many respects I think the emphasis there, in part because of the requirements of federal law, are reducing--diminishing--the amount of time that is spent on ...

As the battle over evolution heats up again in Texas, science educators are presumably bracing themselves for more years in the wilderness.

At issue is language in the current state standards that requires students to examine the "strengths and weaknesses" of every scientific theory. Intelligent design advocates and their creationist kissing cousins are loath to see this language go, as it encourages skepticism about evolution. Science advocates, by contrast, would like to see these words dead and buried, because they see them as the thin end of the creationist wedge. 

As the evolution pendulum continues to swing back and forth, teachers will have to fend for themselves without consistent--or scientifically sound--guidance on how to survive in this uncertain environment. ...