Common Core

Anyone with even a passing interest in the debate over “21st century skills” should read a series of postings on today’s “education experts” blog at National Journal.com.  Diane Ravitch, Sandy Kress, and Andy Rotherham (and perhaps more by the time you’ve read this) have responded to the question:  “Has the P21 Movement Succeeded?”  So far the jury has voted 3 against, 0 in favor.  Ed Sector’s Andy Rotherham, echoing a piece he just published with Dan Willingham on this topic, expresses concern that P21 has failed to engage its critics in a substantive way:  “[A] failure to go deep on these issues is why rather than being transformative so far the 21st Century Skills movement instead runs the risk of being another educational fad that changes little – or worse unravels some of the progress that has been made on behalf of low-income students over the past few decades.”  We agree and are particularly disappointed that P21 has rejected the advice of a panel of scholars CC convened more than six months ago.

Diane Ravitch’s contribution hints at one explanation for P21′s lack of interest in transformation:  “The board of P21, the organization that promotes this alleged movement, is top-heavy with representatives of the major technology companies, suggesting at least to me that the movement will end up noted as a lobbyist for selling more hardware and software to the schools.”  Whether or not it is any good (it’s not) P21 has a product that it’s selling, so (from P21′s perspective) why change it?  Here’s why:  Because improving education is more important than selling anything.  And P21′s program, as it is currently formulated, will not improve our schools and will not increase student achievement.  As Rotherham points out, it may even make our schools worse.

Lynne Munson

Andy Rotherham and Dan Willingham have written a game-changing piece on 21st century skills for the September issue of Educational Leadership. We encourage everyone to read the whole thing. It provides a thorough analysis of what it’s going to take to meaningfully add skills to the curriculum. It’s an understatement to say that the authors are unimpressed with the 21st century skills movement so far.

Rotherham and Willingham share many of our concerns about the 21st century skills movement, beginning with its misleading name. Importantly, they point out that “the rhetoric we have heard surrounding this movement suggests that with so much new knowledge being created, content no longer matters.” This “contradict[s] what we know about teaching and learning,” the authors explain. (Be sure to review Willingham’s remarks from our February panel on 21st century skills – where he discusses the relationship between content and learning in detail.)

Rotherham and Willingham believe that the 21st century skills movement must do more than just vaguely nod in the direction of content knowledge if they are really committed to designing a 21st century skills curriculum. The problem is that the folks behind the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the unopposed leader of the movement, show no sign of being interested in even grasping what is meant by real content. Just review their new skills maps in geography and science and you’ll see what we mean.

James Elias