Common Knowledge^™
The Newsletter of the Core Knowledge Foundation

Praise for The Knowledge Deficit

Following are some samples of the positive feedback regarding The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children, by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

“An important message, eloquently expressed.”
—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works

“E.D. Hirsch's powerful and passionately argued new work could not be more timely.America's reading and knowledge deficit undermine not only its economic competitiveness and struggle for social justice but the very foundation of its democracy. Hirsch's compelling thesis is that the source of the problem is not bad educators but mistaken educational ideas and that the main solution is a radical shift toward a more broadly based and nationally shared body of knowledge that will both enable individual competence and a commonality of discourse. This concise and authoritative work is one of the most important contributions to the ongoing debate on the nation's most urgent domestic problem.”
—Orlando Patterson, author of Freedom:  Freedom in the Modern World

“Schools can't solve all the problems that poor children bring to the classroom, and schools alone can't eliminate the achievement gap. But if we did what E.D. Hirsch said, and made sure that all students, regardless of race, income, or neighborhood, were exposed to a rich, challenging, sequenced curriculum in important subjects, schools could make a much bigger difference than they already do.”
—Edward McElroy, President, American Federation of Teachers

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