So, Siegfried “Zig” Engelmann gets the notion that all children are capable of learning if they’re taught correctly. He then goes on to prove his theory with children whom others had lowered their expectations for because of the children’s background and socioeconomic status. Engelmann demonstrated that clear, consistent teaching was the key to student learning, regardless of students’ background, race, or gender. That didn’t sit well with the progressive education community. It shatters their argument that, in order to teach “disadvantaged students”, schools must first meet all of their basic physical and emotional needs. For decades, schools have lowered academic expectations and invested billions of dollars in everything from universal free breakfast and lunch to social emotional learning (SEL) to in-school laundry service. All of these programs were created to help students learn better. They didn’t. I’m not saying Direct Instruction is perfect, but I’m willing to bet that if districts like mine with almost 100,000 students and a budget of nearly $2 billion had invested in DI instead of SEL, 62% of the students wouldn’t be scoring below proficient in reading right now. Maybe season 2 of Sold A Story will convince district leaders to reconsider their priorities and how they spend their money.