Friday, September 27, 2013

E. D. Hirsch Sees His Education Theories Taking Hold - NYTimes.com

E. D. Hirsch Sees His Education Theories Taking Hold - NYTimes.com:

Culture Warrior, Gaining Ground

E. D. Hirsch Sees His Education Theories Taking Hold




CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A generation after he was squarely pummeled as elitist, antiquated and narrow-minded, the education theorist E. D. Hirsch Jr. is being dragged back into the ring at the age of 85 — this time for a chance at redemption.
Michael Nagle for The New York Times
Teachers in Brooklyn training in a curriculum from E. D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Foundation.
Andrew Shurtleff for The New York Times
Mr. Hirsch.
Invitations to speak have come from Spain, Britain and China. He has won a prestigious education award. Curriculums developed by the Core Knowledge Foundation, which Mr. Hirsch created to disseminate his ideas, have recently been adopted by hundreds of schools in 25 states and recommended by the New York City Department of Education for teachers to use in their classrooms.
Not since 1987, when he first published “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know,” whose list of 5,000 essential concepts left even Ph.D.’s a little dumbstruck, has Mr. Hirsch been so in demand.
“This is a redemptive moment for E. D. Hirsch, after a quarter-century of neglect by people both conservative and liberal,” said Sol Stern, an education writer and senior