How to improve My Brother’s Keeper: Emphasize a content-rich curriculum
My Brother’s Keeper, a new Obama-administration initiative focused on boys and young men of color, appears to be off to a strong start.
Common Core confusion: It’s a math, math world
Kathleen Porter-MageeHere’s a puzzler: Why are the Common Core math standards accused of fostering “fuzzy math” when their drafters and admirers insist that they emphasize basic math, reward precision, and demand fluency? Why are CC-aligned curricula causing confusion and frustration among parents, teachers, and students?
Is differentiated instruction a hollow promise?
Chester E. Finn, Jr.It looks to me as if one of the most acclaimed reforms of today’s education profession—not just in the U.S. but also all over the planet—is one of the least examined in terms of actual implementation and effectiveness.
Why does America produce so few low-income high-achieving students?
Brandon L. WrightWe know from international data—PISA, TIMSS, and so on—that other countries produce more “high achievers” than we do (at least in relation to the
Truth, not tracking
In a provocative piece in Slate recently, Fordham’s executive vice president Mike Petrilli asked why Euro-style tracking isn’t a better strategy for high-school students who are significantly below grade level.
A concluded battle in the curriculum wars
Mark BauerleinIn the Hoover Institution’s Defining Ideas journal, Tom Loveless has a brief, measured examination of today’s curriculum debates.
We all have a stake in ensuring the Common Core debate rests on facts
Kathleen Porter-MageeYesterday, National Review Online posted an article entitled, “The Eleven Dumbest Common Core Problems.” This is the latest in a series of posts making their way around the internet aimed at demonstrating how the Common Core ELA and math standards are &
There’s a new sheriff in town: Louisiana judges Common Core alignment
Kathleen Porter-MageeAs followers of the Common Core debate know all too well, when it comes to the veracity of publishers’ claims of “Common Core alignment,” the most we supporters have been able to offer in the way of advice is: “buyer beware.”
Common Core 'spring training': Maintain realistic expectations
Amber M. Northern, Ph.D., Michael J. PetrilliEveryone knows that the Common Core State Standards initiative has turned into a political football. But a more apt analogy might be baseball—spring training, to be exact. That’s because, for all the colorful commentary, the Common Core is still in the very earliest phases of implementation.
How Well Aligned Are Textbooks to the Common Core Standards in Mathematics?
Alyssa SchwenkJust because the label on that pint of ice cream says it’s “fat free” doesn’t mean it won’t expand your waistline—and just because a textbook is labeled “Common Core aligned” doesn’t mean it actually covers the material it’s supposed to.
The invaluableness of 'obscure' words and the SAT
“Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
Common Core in the Districts: An Early Look at Early Implementers
by Katie Cristol and Brinton S. Ramsey Foreword by Amber M. Northern and Michael J. Petrilli
The most important resolution: STEM education
Our nation’s education crisis is not exaggerated, nor is the risk to our economic prosperity and national security.
Knowledge at the Core
Chester E. Finn, Jr., Michael J. PetrilliOur slim new book Knowledge at the Core: Don Hirsch, Core Knowledge, and the Future of the Common Core has three large aims. First, it pays tribute to three decades of scholarship and service to American education by E. D. (Don) Hirsch, Jr., author of Cultural Literacy (and three other prescient books on education reform) and founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation.
Policymakers: Stop being agnostic about curriculum
Pop quiz! Which of the following statements is in the Common Core State Standards?(a) Through extensive reading of stories, dramas, poems, and myths from diverse cultures and different time periods, students gain literary and cultural knowledge.
Knowledge at the Core: Don Hirsch, Core Knowledge, and the Future of the Common Core
Children cannot be truly literate without knowing about history, science, art, music, literature, civics, geography, and more. Indeed, they cannot satisfactorily comprehend what they read unless they possess the background knowledge that makes such comprehension possible.
Yes, gifted programs improve learning
Brandon L. WrightA recent study examined whether gifted programs benefit students at the margin: those who barely “made the cut” for admission into a program and those who barely missed it.
Who in the world is Carmen Fariña?
Sol SternIn his press conference introducing Carmen Fariña as New York City’s next schools chancellor, Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested that he had picked her over several other candidates because she was on the same page with him in opposing his predecessor Michael Bloomberg’s education reforms.