He has written extensively about American public education, specifically the teaching of critical and creative thinking via Socratic discussion.
Since 1992, he has served as Director of the National Paideia Center,[9] an educational reform institute devoted to creating schools that are both more rigorous and more equitable.
During his time at the Paideia Center, Roberts has served as a consultant on the role of socratic seminar dialogue in the classroom,[10] educational leadership and organizational development.
He has written extensively about classroom instruction and, increasingly, about teaching critical and creative thinking in the context of an expanded definition of literacy.
[11] Around 2005, Roberts began to write fiction inspired by the power of the past among people living in the southern Appalachian mountains.