At the Washington Post yesterday Valerie Strauss published Do young kids need to learn a lot of facts? This essay by Ed Miller and Nancy Carlsson-Piage is a follow-up to their recently published column which criticized the process of the development of the Common Core State Standards for early childhood (PreK to 3rd grade) – a process that did not involve early childhood educators. Strauss then published a response to Miller and Carlsson-Paige, A Common Core Standards defense written by E.D. Hirsch Jr.
Yesterday, Strauss published Miller and Carlsson-Paige’s response to Hirsch. Here is an excerpt:
We’re grateful for Professor Hirsch’s response to our critique of the K-3 Common Core Standards because it confirms our main point: that people without experience in child development or early education (like Hirsch, an English professor) are the ones prescribing what is best for young children and their teachers. Meanwhile, those teachers and others who study children’s development and learning were left out when the standards were written.
Many Common Core advocates favor the corporate education agenda: privatizing public schools through charters, vouchers, and online learning, and judging teachers and schools by standardized test scores. Hirsch believes, along with these “reformers,” that children’s heads need to be filled up with facts. …
Read the entire essay here at The Washington Post.
Yesterday, Strauss published Miller and Carlsson-Paige’s response to Hirsch. Here is an excerpt:
We’re grateful for Professor Hirsch’s response to our critique of the K-3 Common Core Standards because it confirms our main point: that people without experience in child development or early education (like Hirsch, an English professor) are the ones prescribing what is best for young children and their teachers. Meanwhile, those teachers and others who study children’s development and learning were left out when the standards were written.
Many Common Core advocates favor the corporate education agenda: privatizing public schools through charters, vouchers, and online learning, and judging teachers and schools by standardized test scores. Hirsch believes, along with these “reformers,” that children’s heads need to be filled up with facts. …
Read the entire essay here at The Washington Post.