This week I had the pleasure of reading “The Cool Bean” with Ms. Emhardt’s first grade class at Lattie Coor School.
In an effort to promote literacy, and through a grant from the Arizona Department of Education, I regularly read to young students. I then provide a copy of the book to each student, with a few extras for the school’s library. Reading with young students are some of my favorite experiences as Maricopa County School Superintendent. And for some children this is the first book that they have every owned.
Perhaps the most important part of American education is teaching children how to read and write. More than ever before in the history of the world, almost all knowledge is publicly available via the internet and other growing technologies. But it is only available when students learn to read, write, and be able to critically analyze knowledge for themselves.
Thomas Jefferson said, “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
Thomas Jefferson to William Charles Jarvis, 28 September 1820
