Archive for the 'Core Knowledge' Category

Are You Smarter Than a 1954 8th Grader?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 10, 2009 in Core Knowledge. 6 Comments

Quick.  How many current members of the President’s Cabinet can you name?  OK, how many Cabinet positions can you name, even if you don’t know the person in the office right now?  You know the 1st and 2nd Amendments, right?  How about No. 3 through 23?  Check out the 98 and 1/2 grade earned on this 1954 8th grade test on the Constitution.   

Oh, wait.  I keep forgetting.  These are just “mere facts” and trivia.   If we ever need to know our rights we can always just Google it. 

[H/T: Matthew K. Tabor via Twitter]

Common Knowledge Newsletter

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 1, 2009 in Core Knowledge. 1 Comment

The Common Knowledge newsletter, which digests the news about curriculum and teaching, education policy and other subjects of interest to the Core Knowedge community, is published each Friday during the school year.  Here’s this week’s newsletter. To subscribe and receive Common Knowledge via email, click here.

Core Knowledge

E. D. Hirsch’s Curriculum for Democracy
City Journal
If the Obama administration truly wants to have a positive impact on American education, it should embrace E.D. Hirsch’s ideas and urge other states to do the same, writes Sol Stern, who describes Hirsch in this profile as “America’s most important education reformer of the last century.”

Farms, Field Trips and Test Scores
Broad general knowledge certainly correlates with reading ability, but the test of a school’s dedication to that proposition is best measured in its commitment to a rich, well-rounded curriculum day after day, not the occasional field trip. 

Two More Black Eyes for 21st Century Skills

Core Knowledge Quiz: American Symbols and Icons

Best of the Education Blogs

Remembering Ted Sizer
Flypaper
Ted Sizer, who passed away last week, was “a towering figure in American education-and a wonderful guy,” writes Checker Finn. “He viewed education through the eyes of a teacher more than a policymaker and he had boundless faith in the capacity—indeed the necessity—of educators to make and remake their own schools.”

Duncan Puts Education Schools on Blast
ASCD Inservice
Last week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s speech at Columbia University’s Teachers College criticized U.S. education schools for failing to prepare K-12 teachers to do their jobs well. The government has also been remiss in setting the licensure bar too low and disinvesting in high-quality mentoring programs, he added.

Is Homework Necessary? 
Washington Post
“I used to be Mr. Homework, frowning at all the hand-wringing softies who said we were hurting our kids by piling on the assignments,” writes Jay Mathews.  “But now I am wondering if my faith in homework for middle and high-schoolers has been misplaced

Teaching and Curriculum

Why We’re Failing Math and Science
Wall Street Journal
The U.S. lags far behind other developed countries at the K-12 level in terms of measured performance in math and science courses.  The Wall Street Journal asks Joel Klein; Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania; and Christopher Edley Jr. of the University of California at Berkeley, what can be done.

Why teach the arts? Art inspires learning
Christian Science Monitor
When American presidents talk about education, they inevitably stress the need to focus on math and science. “Science emphasizes quantities. Art emphasizes qualities,” argues writer and artist David Arzouman. “Their mix, although paradoxical, moves us closer to completeness.”

Turnover in Principalship Focus of Research
Education Week
While research has for years highlighted the large numbers of beginning teachers who leave the classroom in three or four years, no national study has documented the career moves that principals make, according to experts.

School district policy addresses social networking
Upstate Today (South Carolina)
A South Carolina school district is seeking to ensure its employees exercise caution when using Facebook and other social networking sites. A draft policy stipulates that the personal life of an employee, will be the concern to the school board “if it impairs the employee’s ability to effectively perform his or her job responsibilities or violates local, state or federal law or contractual agreements.”

Publisher enters new chapter in textbooks
Boston Globe
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has announced a $40 million, multiyear contract with Detroit public schools to provide a computer-based teaching system it developed with Microsoft Corp. that will connect teachers, students, and administrators.  It represents a radical shift away from the classic textbook publishing model and an industry transformation, as technology supplants books.

Education Policy

Are Teacher Colleges Turning Out Mediocrity?
TIME Magazine
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan delivered a speech blasting the education schools that have trained the majority of the 3.2 million teachers working in U.S. public schools today.  It was a damning, but not unprecedented, assessment of teacher colleges, which have long been the stepchildren of the American university system and a frequent target of education reformers’ scorn over the past quarter-century.

NCES Finds States Lowered ‘Proficiency’ Bar
Education Week
Academic standards became less rigorous from 2005 to 2007 in a majority of states, says a study by the National Center on Education Statistics.

Bill Gates Is Spending Millions To Influence The Nation’s Education Policy
Associated Press
The real secretary of education, the joke goes, is Bill Gates  The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been the biggest player by far in the school reform movement, spending around $200 million a year on grants to elementary and secondary education.

The Turnaround Fallacy
Education Next
For as long as there have been struggling schools in America’s cities, there have been efforts to turn them around.  But turnaround efforts have consistently fallen short.  “Quite simply,” writes Andy Smarick, “turnarounds are not a scalable strategy for fixing America’s troubled urban school systems.”

Parenting and Homeschooling

L.A. Unified to allow parents to initiate school reforms
Los Angeles Times
For the first time in Los Angeles, parents will be able to initiate major reforms at low-performing individual schools, rather than waiting for the school district to make changes, under a plan unveiled Tuesday.

As aid shrinks, more ’stuck’ for day care
USA Today
As budget problems worsen, states are tightening rules, eliminating enriched child care programs, raising fees that parents and providers pay, and halting new subsidies.  “The real impact of these cuts is on families,” says William Eddy, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Early Education and Care. “Parents are forced to find makeshift care, one day with a neighbor, one day with an aunt, in order to get to work.”

Et Alia

School chooses Kindle; are libraries for the history ‘books’?
USA Today
The 20,000-book library at Cushing Academy, a New England boarding school, was in danger of becoming a relic.  So the venerable boarding school began getting rid of most of the library’s books. In their place: a fully digital collection. Library watchers say it could be the first school library, public or private, to forsake ink and paper in favor of e-books.

Core Knowledge Quiz: American Symbols and Icons

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 28, 2009 in Core Knowledge and Core Knowledge Quiz. 5 Comments

On this day in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland at a ceremony in New York harbor.  This week’s Core Knowledge Quiz is about the Statue of Liberty and other American symbols.  In schools usng the Core Knowledge Sequence, children begin to recognize and become familiar with the Statue of Liberty and other national symbols starting in kindergarten.

  1. How many rays are on the Statue of Liberty’s crown and what do they symbolize? 
  2. The Statue of Liberty holds a torch in one hand and a tablet in the other with the date July 4, 1776.  What lies at the statue’s feet and why? 
  3. Benjamin Franklin described this bird as “a much more respectable bird…and a true original Native of America” and favored it over the bald eagle as America’s national symbol.  What was it? 
  4. Construction of which monument began in 1848, but was stalled for over 20 years by, among other factors, lack of funds and the Civil War? 
  5. An upstate New York businessman who sold beef to the U.S. Army during the War of 1812 was given a nickname that evolved into a symbol for the American government.  Which symbol? 
  6. The 50 stars on the American flag stand for the 50 states.  What do the stripes stand for? 
  7. True or false: The four Presidents depicted on Mount Rushmore appear from left to right in the order in which they served as President.   
  8. On the Great Seal of the United States, what is the eagle clutching in its talons and what do they represent? 
  9. The reverse of the Great Seal, most commonly seen on the back of the one-dollar bill, shows an unfinished pyramid topped by an eye.  What is the eye called and what does it symbolize? 
  10. The bald eagle is the national bird.  The rose is the national flower.  Does the U.S. have a national tree?

  Answers below: Continue reading ‘Core Knowledge Quiz: American Symbols and Icons’

“The Most Important Education Reformer of the Last Century”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 22, 2009 in Core Knowledge, Curriculum and Educational Policy. 9 Comments

[Update:  In the comments to this post, Paul Hoss questions Sol Stern giving credit to Hirsch for Massachusetts's Education Reform Act.  Stern responds below.]

In the new City Journal, Sol Stern files a comprehensive dispatch on the career of E.D. Hirsch, Jr. and judges the Core Knowledge founder to be “the most important education reformer of the last century.”   Stern writes that “Hirsch’s theories, long merely persuasive, now have solid empirical backing in Massachusetts’s miraculous educational reforms.”  So why, he wonders, isn’t Washington paying attention? 

At his Senate confirmation hearing in February, Arne Duncan succinctly summarized the Obama administration’s approach to education reform: “We must build upon what works. We must stop doing what doesn’t work.” Since becoming education secretary, Duncan has launched a $4.3 billion federal “Race to the Top” initiative that encourages states to experiment with various accountability reforms. Yet he has ignored one state reform that has proven to work, as well as the education thinker whose ideas inspired it. The state is Massachusetts, and the education thinker is E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

“Hirsch’s theories, long merely persuasive, now have solid empirical backing in Massachusetts’s miraculous educational reforms,” Stern writes.  One element of the state’s 1993 Education Reform Act was a “Hirschean knowledge-based curricula for each grade.”

In the new millennium, Massachusetts students have surged upward on the biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—“the nation’s report card,” as education scholars call it. On the 2005 NAEP tests, Massachusetts ranked first in the nation in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and fourth- and eighth-grade math. It then repeated the feat in 2007. No state had ever scored first in both grades and both subjects in a single year—let alone for two consecutive test cycles.

Hirsch spoke at a luncheon event at the Manhattan Institute Wednesday, which was recorded for future broadcast by C-SPAN.  In the meantime, a podcast of a lively conversation between Stern and Hirsch is on the City Journal website here.

Core Knowledge Quiz: Inventors and Inventions

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 20, 2009 in Core Knowledge and Core Knowledge Quiz. 1 Comment

130 years ago tomorrow, Thomas Alva Edison perfected the incandescent lightbulb.  How much do you know about inventors and inventions?  Here’s this week’s Core Knowledge Quiz:

1. Which of the following did Edison NOT invent or perfect: the phonograph, the motion picture camera, the stock ticker, or the microphone?

2. The earliest form of writing, using clay tablets and a reed stylus, emerged in the Sumerian civilization.  What was this form of writing called? 

3. The compass, gunpowder, and paper money were the products of which ancient civilization? 

4. It is often said that Alfred B. Nobel bequeathed his fortune and created the Nobel Prizes to improve his reputation, which was damaged by his controversial invention.  What was it? 

5. Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company are widely credited with “inventing” the assembly line, but the first U.S. patent for the process was awarded to another carmaker.  Who? 

6. Which African American inventor discovered over 100 commercial products that could be made from peanuts and was dubbed a “Black Leonardo” by Time Magazine?

7.  Put these inventions or technological developments in chronological order:  the light bulb, the telephone, the internal combustion engine, the airplane. 

8. What invention or advance in transportation are each of the following people associated with:

  • The Wright Brothers
  • The Montgolfier Brothers
  • Elisha Graves Otis
  • James Watt
  • Robert Fulton
  • Robert Goddard

9. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 helped to make cotton cloth cheap and plentiful, which contributed to the rise of slavery as cotton production boomed in the American South.  What exactly did the cotton gin do?

10. Many inventors names are familiar to us today because they have become familiar brand names for the products  they helped develop.  Which inventors are associated with the following products?

  • The Safety Razor
  • Vulcanized rubber 
  • Frozen foods
  • Air conditioning

Answers below:

Continue reading ‘Core Knowledge Quiz: Inventors and Inventions’

Who Knew?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 19, 2009 in Core Knowledge. 1 Comment

The blog Online Schools has compiled a list of “50 Excellent Blogs About Education Reform” and lists the Core Knowledge Blog.  The most surprising news: there are actually 50 blogs about ed reform.

Core Knowledge Quiz: The Age of Exploration

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 12, 2009 in Core Knowledge and Core Knowledge Quiz. 3 Comments

1. Who was the first explorer to circumnavigate the world?
2. What is a caravel?  Describe its significance
3.  Which Spanish explorer supposedly sought the Fountain of Youth and in the process landed in Florida?
4. If Columbus “discovered” America, why are the continents of the Western Hemisphere called North and South America and not North and South Columbia?
5. Who led the first European expedition down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico?
6. Which English explorer named land on the east coast of North America Virginia, to honor “The Virgin Queen,” Elizabeth I?
7. Which Spanish conquistador’s expedition led to the fall of the Aztec empire and the colonization of much of present-day Mexico?
8. Which European made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, making contact with Australia and the Hawaiian Islands?
9. Who made the first water voyage from Europe to India, around Africa via the Indian Ocean?
10. What is the Northwest Passage?
11. Which English explorer made four attempts to find the Northwest Passage and died after his crew mutinied and set him adrift in a rowboat?
12. Which European’s 1497 expedition is commonly believed to be the first European voyage to North America since Leif Ericson’s?

Answers below:

Continue reading ‘Core Knowledge Quiz: The Age of Exploration’

First Monday in October

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 5, 2009 in Core Knowledge and Core Knowledge Quiz. 2 Comments

The first Monday in October is the traditional start of the new term of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Teachers (and a few adults) might wish to see how much their students know about the highest court in the land.

1. The Supreme Court is part of which branch of the government?

2. How are Supreme Court justices appointed and confirmed?

3. True or False: The number of Supreme Court justices is established by the U.S. Constitution.

4. How long does the term of a Supreme Court justice last?

5. Who was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

6. Who is the current Chief Justice?

7. According to the Constitution, no person except a natural born citizen age 35 or older can be President of the United States.  What are the qualifications to be nominated to the Supreme Court?

 8. Of the current nine Justices, how many were nominated by Republican presidents?

9. Describe why each of the following decisions of the Supreme Court are important:

  • Brown v. The Board of Education
  • Dred Scott v. Sandford
  • Plessy v. Ferguson
  • Marbury v. Madison
  • Miranda v. Arizona

10. What words appear on the front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC?

11. How many Justices must agree in order for the Supreme Court to hear a case?

Answers below:

Continue reading ‘First Monday in October’

E.D. Hirsch on the Air

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 1, 2009 in Core Knowledge. 1 Comment

If you’re online (or live in the Northeast and by a radio) at 1pm ET this afternoon, E.D. Hirsch will be on WAMC-FM/Albany the Northeast’s NPR station talking about his new book The Making of Americans.  Listen here.   There’s also a Hirsch essay on “How Schools Fail Democracy” in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Too many Americans are in the linguistic shadows now—possibly close to a majority. Despite intense efforts driven by the No Child Left Behind Act, the language abilities of our 17-year-olds have remained stuck at the steeply declined levels of the 1970s, while the language gap between white students on one side and black and Hispanic students on the other remains distressingly and immovably large. This language gap represents more than a civic disability that prevents full participation in a democracy. It also represents a bar to general prosperity and social justice.

Fanaticism, Factions and SAT Scores

Published by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. on September 24, 2009 in Core Knowledge. 8 Comments

(Ed. Note:  A version of this essay appears in today’s edition of  The New York Daily News.  Both are based on ideas in E.D. Hirsch’s new book The Making of Americans)

In town hall meetings and the Internet people address fellow citizens with whom they disagree as though they were dangerous creatures from another planet.  The animosities on display have an almost tribal flavor — Hutus versus Tutsis, white versus black, Democrats versus Republicans. 

“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along?”   Rodney King, a man whose beating by the police became a flashpoint in U. S. race relations achieved with those words a place in national memory.  Coming at a moment of tension and resentment, they resonated with Americans’ deep desire for comity – just as we now wish for greater civility at health-care town hall meetings and more cooperation among members of Congress.    

Quasi-tribal domestic hostilities constitute a mortal danger to our nation that the founders of the United States were anxious to overcome.  They believed that the deepest threats to any republic were the two F’s: faction and fanaticism.   When Ben Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a lady asked him:  “Well, Doctor, what have we got?”  To which he replied: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”   His remark reflected a worry shared by other delegates to the convention, including George Washington and James Madison.  Washington bequeathed part of his estate to the creation of a system of schooling that would “do away local attachments and state prejudices.”  And Madison acknowledged in the Federalist Papers that we need to develop a new kind of citizen through our schools:  “As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust; So there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.   Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form.”    Unless we could educate citizens and leaders who could rise above personal ambition and special interest to seek the common good, our new republic would fail as had all prior republics in history.     

Throughout the nineteenth century, American schools deliberately fostered a sense of commonality with other Americans.   It was the great era of the common school movement which featured a benign conspiracy among the writers of schoolbooks to teach many of the same things across all subjects in the early grades, and especially in American history. As one early textbook author put it, the aim was “to exhibit in a strong light the principles of religious and political freedom which our forefathers professed . . . and to record the numerous examples of fortitude, courage, and patriotism which have rendered them illustrious.”    During the 19th century, American politics were as hardnosed as now, but compromise in Congress and civility in the public sphere were greater then.   During the 19th century the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville reported that the schools of the United States were being far more successful in the effort at citizen-making and allegiance to the common good than the schools of Europe.   

Today, our schools are failing to raise the language proficiencies of high school students.  We see clear evidence in disappointing scores on college entrance exams like the SAT.  It is no coincidence that we are seeing a rise in public incivility along with this decline in verbal skills.   The key point in understanding the profound connection between the two is that language proficiency is chiefly based on wide knowledge, and more specifically on knowledge that is silently shared by every competent member of a speech community.   This tacitly shared knowledge constitutes the public sphere — the commons upon which civic discourse takes place.  The key to being a good speaker, reader, and writer is the possession of the broad unspoken knowledge that is shared by other effective speakers, readers, and writers within a nation. 

Space won’t permit an elaboration of the strong scientific consensus that explains the connection between shared, unspoken knowledge and effective communication.   I’ve done that at length in various books, most recently in The Making of Americans.   Here I’ll simply assume that basic point about communication and make a further point about the decline of civility.  The shared knowledge that enables communication in the public sphere also induces a sense of community, and helps overcome tribal antipathies.   Horace Mann, often described as the father of public education, said: “The spread of education, by enlarging the cultivated class or caste, will open a wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and, if this education should be universal and complete, it would do more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in society.”   

Mann, and education pioneers like Noah Webster, as well as our brilliant founders understood that shared knowledge and loyalty to the common good could only be fostered through a common elementary education – a shared core curriculum in the early grades.   By 1950, that insight became neglected and, indeed, aggressively rejected in our schools.    The subsequent fragmentation of the elementary-school curriculum is the root cause of our students’ low verbal scores, and of the wide gap in verbal proficiency between our low-scoring white students and far lower-scoring black and Hispanic students.    We will recover verbal proficiency, economic justice, and social comity only if we institute more coherent substance and greater commonality in our elementary schools.