Now Comes the Hard Part
by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.September 27th, 2010
Note: A shorter version of this essay appears today in the New York Daily News under the title “School reform’s next frontier: Translate new standards into good curriculum that puts reading first.”
Over the summer, 37 states agreed to adopt a single set of K-12 standards in English Language Arts to define the competencies needed for citizenship, productivity, and fairness. It’s a long overdue reform. But now comes the hard part – figuring out exactly the new standards mean for the day-to-day work of teaching and learning in U.S. classrooms. It is one thing to insist, as the new standards do, that history and science be taught