Author Archive for CKF

Book Excerpt: ‘Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy’

By Richard D. Kahlenberg

Wall Street Journal logo… Though Shanker held no public office, he became supremely influential, his name constantly invoked in education circles. “In the course of the past two decades,” educator and author E. D. Hirsch Jr. wrote in 1997, “Albert Shanker made himself the most important figure in American education.” While secretaries of education came and went, as did presidents of the much larger NEA, Shanker endured, and he outdid and out-thought all of them. If Horace Mann was the key educational figure in the nineteenth century and John Dewey in the first half of the twentieth century, Albert Shanker has stood as the most influential figure since then. As a central thinker, writer, and player in all the great education debates of the last quarter century — whether school vouchers, charter schools, or education standards — he was, journalist Sara Mosle argues, “our Dewey.”

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Up to whose standards?

The Sunday PaperBy Bob Zaslavsky

… It is possible to formulate a good curriculum that is rigorous, sequential, concrete and communally significant. One such curriculum is the Core Knowledge Foundation’s “Core Knowledge Sequence: Content Guidelines for Grades K-8.” For each grade level, skills are stated generally and specifically. In Language Arts, there is a detailed list of the poems, books and proverbs that each student is expected to study at that level. There is no duplication. The goal of the curriculum is culturally shared knowledge that promotes excellence and equity.

A small number of schools has adopted this curriculum with impressive results. Yet whenever I have tried to introduce this curriculum to school system administrators, the resistance is fierce. Instead of reaching for something new, they are content to cling to the nothing they have.

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Reading Curricula Don’t Make Cut for Federal Review

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Education Week logoA long-awaited review of beginning-reading programs by the federal What Works Clearinghouse found few comprehensive or supplemental programs that have evidence of effectiveness in raising student achievement. But what is missing from the review may be even more telling: None of the most popular commercial reading programs on the market had sufficiently rigorous studies to be included in the review by the clearinghouse.

“Some of the very prominent, full-year reading curricula weren’t prioritized for this review,” said Jill Constantine, the principal director of the review. “They tended not to have studies with randomized-control trials or with experimental designs that met the clearinghouse’s evidence standards.”

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USA Today Op-Ed: Our view on improving education: An illusion gains credibility

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

USA TodayIf 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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Hiring Elementary teachers for Liberty Academy Charter School in Salem, UT

Liberty Academy Charter School is a charter school in Salem, UT. They are currently a K-10 school with plans to go to 12th within the next 2 years. Their curriculum is based on traditional learning using Core Knowledge, Riggs, Shurley English, Singapore and Saxon math, and Latin from the Roots Up. They also use a Values Program to ensure their students are well rounded.

Get more information on the Core Knowledge Jobs page.

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Commentary: Just the facts, please

Why teaching facts is more fair than teaching “critical thinking.” A commentary by Scott Hurban.

Tracy PressIf anyone wants to understand the general decline in academic education, especially among the urban poor, I recommend, “The Schools We Need and Why We Don’t Have Them,” by E.D. Hirsch. It is a researched indictment of teacher training during the past 50 years.

… Teachers are taught that the accumulation of knowledge is happening at such a frightening pace that it is futile to emphasize facts, since facts will become obsolete over a short time. It is better to teach students “critical thinking” skills so they can analyze the changes and become “lifelong learners.” Teachers are to emphasize process and pedagogy, instead of factual content.

Teachers are taught that learning is natural and that forcing students to learn what they don’t want is detrimental to a child’s natural curiosity. Teachers are to be “facilitators” and not “drill instructors.”

The outcome of these high sounding ideas is the destruction of egalitarianism (equal opportunity) for the urban poor and socially disadvantaged.

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English, Math Time Up in ‘No Child’ Era

Washington Post44% of Schools Polled Reduce Other Topics

By Jay Mathews, Washington Post Staff Writer

In the five years since a federal law mandated an expansion of reading and math tests, 44 percent of school districts nationwide have made deep cutbacks in social studies, science, art and music lessons in elementary grades and have even slashed lunchtime, a new survey has found.

The most detailed look at the rapidly changing American school day, in a report released today, found that most districts sharply increased time spent on reading and math.

… But Andrew J. Rotherham, a co-founder of the Education Sector think tank in the District who serves on the Virginia Board of Education, likened the increased hours spent in reading instruction, devoid of history and science, to a diet full of empty calories. “If you have just doughnuts for breakfast, you will be hungry again soon,” he said. “But a balanced breakfast can carry you to lunch.”

He cited the work of University of Virginia researcher E.D. Hirsch Jr., who has said elementary students need exposure to history and science to be able to handle the concepts and vocabulary that make them good readers.

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Magnet Schools of America: New and Emerging Award: Arlington International Leadership School

Magnet Schools of AmericaPrincipal: James A. Bailey

Jackson, Tennessee

After becoming a magnet school in 2004, Arlington International Leadership School has accomplished many great things. With the inception of the MSAP grant, Arlington became a school with the Core Knowledge Curriculum as its foundation. Social studies, history, and geography, as well as all other subject areas, are covered by this curriculum developed by the Core Knowledge Foundation. Emphasis is placed on increasing student achievements and opportunities, improving the school setting, training the teachers in the latest curriculum and technology techniques, establishing new parent programs, and marketing the successes and opportunities Arlington has to offer.

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Opinion: Scholastic success stories

USA TodayThe principal and teachers at Atlanta’s Capitol View Elementary School know that most people expect their students to fail. Nine of 10 live in poverty. Their parents are not well traveled, their bedrooms lack shelves sagging with books. When they walk to school, they might step around drug paraphernalia.

But expectations change at the schoolhouse door. Inside, the students study classic and modern literature. They have half-hour French lessons pegged to the subjects they are studying. Unlike many inner-city schools that focus solely on reading and math, these students soak up the world, drawing on the “core knowledge” curriculum developed by education professor and author E.D. Hirsch.

And it works: Student test scores outshine those at other Atlanta schools and even some schools in wealthier parts of the state.

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53 of Nation’s Best Honored as 2007 Charter Schools of the Year

The Center for Education Reform (CER) honored 53 of the nation’s best charter schools as part of its National Charter School of the Year program held in Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club and on Capitol Hill. Chosen from the nation’s nearly 4,000 charter schools for their achievement, innovation, and accountability, the honorees hailed from 24 states.

The following Core Knowledge schools were recognized as six of the 53 best charter schools in the United States. Here the school names and facts about each one are listed as they appear on the Center’s website, along with the other winners:

Challenge Charter School, Glendale, AZ

This Arizona school provides a sound educational environment grounded in the fundamentals of a hands-on, science-oriented, academic core curriculum. It’s easy to see why this school has a waiting list of over 300. Challenge Charter School is an Official Core Knowledge School.

Jefferson Academy Elementary, Broomfield, CO

After winning its charter through an appeals process that was the first of its kind in the state, Jefferson Academy ranks in the top 16 percent or better in overall achievement of schools in Colorado. Jefferson Academy is an Official Core Knowledge School.

Liberty Common School, Ft. Collins, CO

In 2005–2006 they ranked No.1 in their district for standardized tests, and with 99 percent of their students graduating on time, it’s no wonder Liberty Common School has 941 students on their waiting list. Liberty Common School is an Official Core Knowledge School and Visitation Site.

Discovery School, Lancaster, SC

On the 2006 annual report card issued by the state of South Carolina, 100 percent of the students surveyed were satisfied with the learning environment, the social and physical environment, and school-home relations. Discovery School is a Friend of Core Knowledge School.

Midland Valley Preparatory School, Graniteville, SC

By taking students who have not been successful in traditional public schools, Midland met AYP objectives and closed the achievement gap. Midland Valley is a Friend of Core Knowledge School.

Ridgeview Classical Schools, Ft. Collins, CO

Based on the 9th and 10th graders’ scores on the CSAP and the 11th graders’ scores on the ACT, RCS was ranked the No.1 school in Colorado the past two years in a row. Ridgeview Classical is a Friend of Core Knowledge School.

See the complete list of schools

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