The Core Knowledge Blog

For most, curriculum isn’t narrowing, despite focus on math, reading.

If children aren’t solid readers by third grade — the time students go from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” — their chances of becoming successful students are limited.

… Some schools in low-income neighborhoods have indeed gone too far in focusing on math and science to the exclusion of other subjects. But it doesn’t have to be that way:

• Nearly 600 public schools using the innovative “Core Knowledge” program wrap reading and math skills into an unusually rich curriculum that teaches elementary students about everything from Egyptian culture to the Italian Renaissance. At P.S. 124 in Queens, near New York’s JFK Airport, 97% of the students are minorities and 90% live in poverty. And yet this school turns in math and reading scores that rival schools in middle-class areas.

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