When he was 4 years old, my father’s family fled war-torn Europe for Chicago. The year was 1950. His parents spoke little to no English, nor were they well-educated in their native Polish. They worked the city’s industrial corridors, brooms and mops in hand, inhaling the toxins of the factories, ultimately dying during their first decade here. Their four sons — including my father — spent time in the orphanage before being adopted, two at a time because of the financial burden, by fellow countrymen.

The orphanage nuns pointed my father toward Catholic school, and there he was afforded the “privilege” (it was hardly considered a right back then) of learning to read. Amidst the turbulence and trauma of his youth, family folklore says my father could often be found with a Camel cigarette upon his lips, a wad of sawbucks and c-notes in one hand and a copy of the Tribune or the Sun-Times in the other. His late nights of mischief were often followed by serene days in the shade reading “Oliver Twist” or a “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

Somewhere around age 30, he completed college. After that, his primary role in life was that of “Dad” to me and my sister. To us he was known for the incessant pronouncement of a handful of go-to phrases, including “Reading is the key to all knowledge.”

For all of the wisdom passed along, this particular aphorism had the most staying power.

“To all knowledge,” in my father’s mind, didn’t necessarily mean to college or to a particular job, nor was it strictly a means of advancement or financial security. Rather, literacy was a path to choice, conversation, expression and the shredding of ignorance. “To all knowledge” meant literacy as a gateway to earning a better living and experiencing a better life.

My family’s story is the story of thousands who crossed, and who continue to cross, borders and shores to fulfill this promise. An excellent education is, in part, what makes the often-arduous journey worth it. It is our nation’s journey and the journey of many of my former middle school students in Miami’s Little Haiti, the 2018 New Mexico Teacher of the Year, and the students at Columbus Elementary School in Deming, where I recently visited.

I see my father’s story in theirs, and theirs in his.

My father wasn’t thrilled that I decided to teach middle school social studies through Teach For America. He didn’t expect me to become a policy advocate fighting for stronger English language arts instruction nor a state policymaker who established regulations expanding quality dual-language programs, opportunities for our earliest readers and more frequent family engagement around our students’ literacy.

It was all in the spirit of “Reading is the key to all knowledge.”

Today, some speak of student literacy as if it’s a given, as if it isn’t something for which we’ve all toiled and bled. As the pendulum of our education landscape erratically swings, let us not lose sight of my father’s words. Every student deserves the key that unlocks all knowledge. No innovation or R&D effort need be at the expense of literacy and numeracy. Should our students develop critical thinking skills, social-emotional resilience and creativity? Definitively, yes, but without literacy for all, there will be continued injustice. I rarely met a working parent of a student in New Mexico who didn’t feel the same way.

During my tenure as secretary, I had the privilege of visiting all of the state’s 89 school districts and dozens of higher performing schools that refused to succumb to false dichotomies: the fundamentals (literacy first amongst them) and innovation lived harmoniously, side by side.

We should learn from innovations sparked in New Mexico over the last few years. Explore Academy in Albuquerque, for instance, offers 700 different high school courses, a truly personalized learning experience. Early college high schools are expanding from San Juan County in the northwest corner to Eddy County in the southeast. Innovative school models are tackling everything from staffing structures to wrap-around services to foreign language offerings. Year-round schooling is becoming the norm — whether through extended instruction or through 24/7 individualized Khan Academy accounts. Two northern school districts are on the vanguard of Teach to One individualized middle school math experiences. More students are completing the FAFSA and college prep activities through former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher initiative. And last year New Mexico advanced Career and Technical Education pathways of equal rigor, ultimately cementing them in our graduation requirements.

It is easy to understand how, amongst all of this inspiring innovation, we as adults could get seduced away from the fundamentals. But we cannot take our students’ literacy for granted. We remain far away from our sacred commitment of every student being literate. It is a civil right. It is a moral and economic imperative. It is still the foundation of the education that our families seek and deserve and part of the promise of this country.

It is still the key to all knowledge.

In my line of work, there’s a lot of talk about amplifying the novel 21st century skills of creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking. Delivering on those competencies in an equitable fashion would seem to prepare this generation of students for navigating their futures. It’s a compelling concept and not one that I remember seeing on any anchor chart in the schools I attended. But when I think back to grade school, my strongest and most positive memories are of teachers who helped me build those competencies — even if the buzzwords had yet to become a part of our education vernacular. In that sense, I would argue that the fundamentals absolutely still matter.

This June, it will be 11 years since I received my high school diploma from the public district of the predominantly white, upper-class Los Angeles suburb where I grew up. Having taken and been successful in all my classes — including Advanced Placement (AP) science courses — I was extremely well served by the schools I attended. While I do think AP computer science was offered, I never considered taking it. After graduating college with an engineering degree, I returned to Los Angeles as part of Teach For America. I taught high school math before accepting my current role in the home office of Aspire Public Schools, where I have supported blended learning efforts and am now working to build educator capacity in STEAM classrooms across the schools we serve.

From this vantage point, I’ve had an incredible opportunity to see how some of the structures of education have changed. Just as I started teaching, Common Core standards were being finalized and implemented. Then, in my last year teaching, my school switched from a traditional math sequence to integrated math in grades nine through eleven. This is a transition that I now work to support in my current role. More recently, I’ve received queries from new players in the education technology space offering innovations never before seen in schools. I’ve toured a variety of campuses using these tools within school models, which are breaking the barriers of bell scheduling and immovable classroom walls. In the last year, I’ve seen the California Board of Education approve a set of computer science standards with the intention of accepting a statewide implementation plan by July 2019.

If I entered high school in the next few years, my experience would be much different than it was as a member of the class of 2008. I can safely assume that I would have at least one computer science class on my roster. And my ninth to 11th grade math sequence would include Integrated Math I, II and III, not Geometry, Algebra 2 and Trigonometry/Pre-Calculus.

Instead of periodic trips to the computer lab, I would carry a Chromebook or tablet from class to class and use it regularly as part of core instruction. Higher rigor assessments that include constructed response items and writing would take the place of the former California Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) program.

Clearly, the curriculum and education delivery mechanisms and systems have changed since my time as a student. However, when I remember my most powerful academic experiences, I do not believe they would be out of place in high schools in the future. Despite the increased focus on new standards, new tools and required courses, I continue to return to the quote from Jordan Tinney at the top of this piece. Those educators, who I view as my best teachers in high school, embodied and taught me the “4-Cs” of collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking. They built personal relationships with me. And they helped me identify and use my grit, perseverance and self-management — all while providing me with a strong base of knowledge that would allow me to continue to excel in high-level courses.

I fondly remember my chemistry teacher making dimensional analysis and the balancing of chemical equations second nature while also empowering us to put on a science and Harry Potter-themed show for a local elementary school. And I recall my physics teacher posing problems that didn’t have a clear solution or pathway to get there and allowing us as students to be OK with that. My English teachers reinforced clarity, brevity and effective argument through actionable feedback. My math teachers worked to know us and make math class a safe place to try different strategies and ask questions. My history teachers introduced perspectives that would not naturally percolate around the dinner tables in my community.

Observers in the classrooms where I sat as a student would have seen those as effective teaching practices — whether in 2008, 2018, 1918 or 2118. We may have more precise language to identify them — 21st century skills, SEL, Common Core etc. — but the practices themselves have remained incredibly consistent.

In short, our fundamentals of schooling still matter. Now, the impetus must be to deliver on these practices equitably. Our education system has unjustly denied a huge number of our young learners access to strong fundamentals alongside rigorous, grade-level instruction. The work now must be to sustain and empower our teachers and leaders, at all levels and in all neighborhoods of this country, to thrive and grow into these fundamentals.