The Core Knowledge Blog

I only know two things about UVA law school professor Jim Ryan. He’s a neighbor of Alice Wiggins, Core Knowledge’s Early Childhood Program Director, and he’s got a pretty solid prescription for what ails public education.

Slate is promising a 10-part series of posts from experts “offering detailed policy prescriptions for the next president, whomever that may be.” Ryan’s answers for education include national testing (”No one argues that it would be better to have 50 different AP tests in American history instead of one”) and fewer of them, “perhaps in only fourth, eighth, and 11^th grades.” Agreed, and while we’re at it, let’s take up E.D. Hirsch’s idea to correlate reading tests to the content standards in other subjects. Teachers will teach to the test. Make that a productive use of classroom time as Hirsch’s idea suggests. This would also fit neatly with Ryan’s prescription: “Don’t stop all testing, stop stupid testing.”

Ryan also adds his voice to the growing chorus in favor of national standards . “It’s time to create national standards and tests in at least reading, math, science, and social studies/history,” he writes. “National tests in the past have been nonstarters politically, but they have always polled well, and some politicians are starting to come around. The reality is that the current federal-state compromise isn’t working and doesn’t make sense in a shrinking and flattening world. Why should we expect less of a student in Mississippi than in Massachusetts? Do fractions and algebra matter in North Carolina but not North Dakota?”

Ryan has lots more to say on value-added, preschool and teacher pay. Worth reading.