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Health & Fitness

The Common Core Tests in Language Arts Will Soon Be Coming to Your Child's School

In our on-going desire to bring educational and thought provoking information to parents of school aged children, as well as the community at large, the North Bay Educational Foundation (NBEF) will share news, articles, case studies and announcements on this blog. Our hope is to stimulate conversation about improving education in the North Bay community and to provide a forum to openly examine educational alternatives for our children.

"The Common Core Tests in Language Arts Will Soon Be Coming to Your Child's School. Tell Your Local Superintendent: 'Don't Worry. Students Will Ace Those Tests If They Learn History, Civics, Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts.' "

Common Core Standards have been adopted by more than 40 states, and these standards are expected to be fully implemented in California by 2014-2015.  In this recent article in the Huffington Post, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, author of many acclaimed books on education and author of the Core Knowledge curriculum, explains to parents that the best test prep for their child under the new Common Core standards will be a more systematic approach to imparting knowledge.”

Dr. Hirsch makes the case that for Common Core Standards to be implemented successfully, it is critical that the standards be paired with a strong knowledge-based curriculum, particularly for disadvantaged children:

“The success of Common Core Standards in Language Arts is supremely important for many reasons, not least because of the recent intensification of income inequality. Student scores on language arts tests are the single most reliable academic predictors of later income. The new language arts standards of the Common Core represent an historic opportunity for beneficial change in American schools -- if they are put into effect intelligently.”

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Dr. Hirsh notes research by cognitive scientists that has found “the more students know about a topic, the further above their level they can read on that topic. This new understanding of reading ability demands nothing less than a revolution in language arts instruction, with less emphasis on technique and more emphasis on the systematic acquisition of knowledge.”

“The new Common Core Standards have recognized this research finding. They state that these standards ‘do not -- indeed, cannot -- enumerate all or even most of the content that students should learn’. The Standards must therefore be complemented by a well-developed, content-rich curriculum. And we have to take care that the schools and the experts hear and act on that truth. Parents and concerned citizens should make sure that they do.”

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Dr. Hirsch encourages schools and parents to embrace the possibilities of correcting what hasn’t worked in classrooms, The coming of the Common Core standards and tests need not be a new, harrowing imposition on already besieged schools. Rather they are an historic opportunity -- a new slate on which schools can write either a topic-indifferent, fragmented curriculum similar to what has failed before, or a new, exciting and successful orientation to knowledge.”

Read Hirsch’s entire article on the Huffington Post blog:


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