The four sweetest words in the English language are “I told you so.” Here’s the response of Ken Kay, the head of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, to Common Core’s letter:
We have never advocated, in any context, the teaching of 21st century skills separate from content. It is clear that you can’t just teach students to think, you have to teach them to critically think, problem solve and innovate about something – knowledge is the base of learning.”
Right. Exactly as predicted. I told you so.
OK, we’ve all had our fun. Basta. Enough. Ken, whaddya say? Let’s marry P21’s skills to the Core Knowledge Sequence and show everyone that we’re all on the same side. To heck with national standards. Together, we can roll out a first-rate national curriculum that everyone can get behind.
Have your people call my people, Ken. OK, I don’t have people. But get in touch, Ken. Really. We can do this thing.
I think the issue here is a simple advocacy of your own particular curriculum. It looks to me like you, E.D Hirsch, Chester Finn, Diane Ravitch, and others simply want the “Core Knowledge Sequence” to be enacted and that the “21st Century” individuals have their own set of facts that they want to teach and that is why you don’t like them. As Lay noted, everyone knows that skills can’t be taught without facts. The issue is what constitutes the the disciplines. I’m not surprised that Hirsch is advocating for his own curriculum, but it seems strange because the NCLB that everyone lauded (especially Hirsch) has caused scores on the NAEP and TIMSS to go down rather than constantly up. Also, the scores in which the “Core Knowledge” sequence has been implemented have been the charter schools, which aren’t accountable except to the people that run them. I’ve noticed that when you’ve mentioned charter schools and the “Core Knowledge” curriculum in past posts, it’s always from Colorado, a state never known for having high test scores no matter what type of school or curriculum is in existence there. The “Core Knowledge Sequence” from having surveyed many states’ test scores always still leaves the schools that use it just behind the schools that don’t use it. For example, in one Kentucky school district, an elementary school from Ashand that has used Hirsch’s curriculum scored an average of an 89 on a state reading test for fourth graders from the 06-07 school year while the top school scored a 102 and simply followed the state’s already existing standards. The problem is that schools aren’t following the state’s standards and need to be helped to do so. That’s why they struggle, not because they don’t have standards, but because they are having trouble producing training materials and schedules to train the teachers in them. They don’t need a commercial curriculum. They need standards.
More on this later, Al, but for now a quick response: My point was not about the value of Core Knowledge curriculum, per se, but the value of a solid, sequenced curriculum. ANY solid, sequenced curriculum broadly adopted would prevent the gaps and repetitions we see now–gaps that do significant damage by de-emphasizing the background knowledge, which is the soul of reading comprehension in later grades. I also think you’re confusing standards and content. NCLB is silent on what kids should be taught. And most standards and accountability schemes are silent on what kids should know and learn (content), but speak only to what kids should be able to do (process and skills). My point, now and always, is that you can’t unwind the two. Giving kids broad knowledge is essential and creates the conditions under which teaching skills like critical thinking and problem solving is most likely to be efficacious.
So it’s about the need for a broad curriculum, period. Indeed, I don’t speak for Hirsch or others, but I’m pretty sure that if we woke up tomorrow and found that a robust national curriculum had been adopted and was NOT Core Knowledge, we’d all walk to the unemployment office with big smiles on our faces.