This report makes the case that a knowledge-rich curriculum is the most effective foundation for developing the complex cognitive skills — critical thinking, problem-solving, reading comprehension — that educators most want students to have. Drawing on cognitive psychology, sociology and curriculum studies, it argues that generic skills cannot be taught in isolation: they depend on prior domain-specific knowledge stored in long-term memory. The report challenges competency-based approaches that have displaced content knowledge in recent decades, and shows that a curriculum built around coherent, sequenced, disciplinary knowledge is also a matter of equity — ensuring all students, regardless of background, have access to the knowledge needed to participate in civic and professional life.