Some encouraging news from Diane Ravitch, unquestionably one of the great historians of education at work today. The regrettable demise of the Council for Basic Education has been responded to by the formation of a new research group called Common Core.
Here’s how Ms. Ravitch described it:
We hope to sponsor research, conduct conferences, publish reports, and do similar things to change the climate and to move our schools away from the current unhealthy obsession with testing.
As one who is convinced that standardized testing has measured the decline it has contributed to, this is refreshing news. I don’t think Core Knowledge goes far enough, but I don’t think I do either. We are moving in the same direction in that we agree that knowledge matters. To clarify, Common Core is not Core Knowledge, but they also are moving in the same direction.
God bless them. I’ll be following developments.
