And if that's the case, then what damage do we do with this learning crisis framing?

The book really is a reflection of my own career and the journey that I've been on since 1991.

My first engagement with assessing children's learning in the early grades was when I worked with a USAI team where we tested children in grades one to three.

And back then, I saw the problem.

It's being described today as the crisis, that children were actually not achieving the levels at which they were supposed to achieve.

This has been a message that has been repeated time and again.

So my frustration with it, which led to the book, was why do we have this problem persisting, and then we offer solutions which do not seem to correct it, so address this problem.

So Kwame, how do you believe policymakers should weigh the evidence on the learning gains from mother tongue instruction against this genuine parental demand? Is there any way to reconcile these?