Common Core

British sociologist Frank Furedi (University of Kent; see his new book Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating) argues that liberal education is supposed to teach children about the “cultural and intellectual achievements of humanity.” That’s controversial.

Furedi writes:

“Although education is celebrated as one of the most important institutions of society, there is a casual disrespect for the content of what children are taught. Curriculum engineers often display indifference, if not contempt, for abstract thought and the knowledge developed in the past. Both are criticised for being irrelevant or outdated; only new information that can be applied and acted on is seen as suitable for the training – and it is training and not teaching – of digital natives.”

We agree with Furedi: an emphasis on how-to skills rather than knowledge is not an education.

He continues:

“The idea that we live in a qualitatively different world serves as a premise for the claim that the knowledge and insights of the past have only minor historical significance. In education it is claimed that old ways of teaching are outdated precisely because they are old. Knowledge itself is called into question because in a world of constant flux it must be continually overtaken by events. Policy has become so focused on keeping up with change that it has become distracted from the task of giving meaning to education.

The fetishisation of change is symptomatic of a mood of intellectual malaise, where notions of truth, knowledge and meaning have acquired a provisional character. Perversely, the transformation of change into a metaphysical force haunting humanity actually desensitises society from distinguishing between a passing novelty and qualitative change. That is why lessons learned through the experience of the past are so important for helping society face the future. When change is objectified, it turns into spectacle that distracts society from valuing the truths and insights it has acquired throughout the best moments of human history. Yet these are truths that have emerged through attempts to find answers to the deepest and most durable questions facing us, and the more the world changes the more we need to draw on our cultural and intellectual inheritance.

If the legacy of past achievements has ceased to have relevance for the schooling of young people, what can education mean? Thinkers from across the left-right divide have always realised that education represents a transaction between the generations. Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist thinker, wrote ‘in reality each generation educates the new generation’. Writing from a conservative perspective, English philosopher Michael Oakeshott concluded ‘education in its most general significance may be recognised as a specific transaction which may go on between the generations of human beings in which newcomers to the scene are initiated into the world they inhabit’. Liberal political philosopher Hannah Arendt said education provided an opportunity for society to preserve and to renew its intellectual inheritance through an intergenerational conversation.”

Look again: a transaction between generations about what’s worth knowing. Not a transaction between schools and big business about how to save money training new employees.

You can now read Diane Ravitch’s op/ed on 21^st century skills in the Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Metro West Daily News, Lowell Sun, and Quincy Patriot Ledger, a group of newspapers with average daily circulation north of 600,000. This is the article wherein Diane dubs 21^st century skills “the latest fad to sweep K-12 education.” We’ve heard from a lot of editors about reprinting the piece, which is just the latest evidence of wide and deep opposition to P21’s discredited ideas.

If you haven’t heard about 21^st century skills and would like to learn what educators (not accountants and businessmen) think about it, we recommend you start with the papers presented at our February panel: here, here, and here.

Earlier this month, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills released five State Implementation Guides designed to help lawmakers and educators integrate 21st century skills into every aspect of education, from curriculum to professional development. Together the guides constitute a roadmap to mediocrity, and to more profit for P21 vendors.

The first document (a guide to curriculum and instruction) sounds promising, since P21 normally skates past curriculum to talk about skills, assessments, and professional development. But all P21 does here is point readers to their previously published Skills Maps, a series of docs that “provide educators with short idea-generating examples of how these skills can be integrated into core subjects while making the teaching and learning of core subjects more relevant to the demands of the 21st century.” P21 has skills maps in social studies, English language arts, science and geography, which is odd because they all read like advertising/marketing curricula, at best. Eighth grade science students are encouraged to determine what patterns of speech and word choice make someone “sound scientific.” Geography students research the use of globes, maps, etc. in logos and screen savers. And an English Language Arts lesson has students translate Shakespeare into a text message.

Things go downhill from there as P21, once again, uses the idea of 21st century skills as thin cover to push the products of its corporate members. On page 4 of the Assessment Guide: ”The assessment development process should be collaborative, involving not only assessment experts, but … outside vendors who provide assessment-related services and products.” Readers will find numerous vendors of assessments on P21′s website. On page 5 of the Professional Development Guide P21 argues that school districts should “[i]nvest in creating professional online learning communities to support teachers, administrators and state department of education employees in the creation of online support groups for 21st century skills.” P21 then points readers to professional development software made by Intel, a member of P21′s Strategic Council.

On page 5 of its Learning Environments Guide P21 pushes schools to “[m]ove toward flexible units of time that enable project-based work, interdisciplinary themes and competency-based measures of student progress.” Why? Well, because Cisco Systems says so: ”Cisco Systems and Metiri Group have reviewed the research on the effectiveness of education technology, and outlined the general trends and their effectiveness to help educators invest more wisely in technology.” Metiri Group’s bread and butter is providing consulting services to state and local governments about implementing technology and related 21st century skills initiatives.

With so much marketing savvy on board, one would think that P21 would be a bit more canny at reinventing itself in order to escape some of the criticism that has been leveled against it throughout most of 2009. Instead, the organization just keeps making the same old pitch.

James Elias and Lynne Munson

EdWeek reports that Apple’s Karen Cator, who chaired the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ board in 2007, will become head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Education Technology. The office oversees several major Department programs, including its grants for developing longitudinal data systems and new digital learning strategies.

Will Cator use her new office to promote P21’s discredited ideas? Cator’s boosters are encouraging her to do so. Ann Flynn, the National School Boards Association’s director of educational technology, comments: ”[Cator] has a fabulous national perspective from the work she’s been doing, and the ability to articulate the importance of 21st-century skills for learning.” That’s interesting. Because “learning” didn’t seem to be a major concern of Cator’s when we heard her speak at P21′s National Summit last June. Then she was just talking about how the 21st century skills agenda can save business money. She explained, for example, that P21 added “health literacy” to its skills framework because employers “need ‘health-literate’ people to keep down health care costs.” Apparently those sick days just eat in to the bottom line.

The purpose of education – the mission of our schools – should be to produce knowledgeable American citizens. Not merely productive workers. But 21st century skills proponents are so in thrall to the idea of schools as a vehicle for selling more technology that “learning” sort of becomes a secondary concern, at best. Flynn aptly describes this worldview: “We cannot do any of the technology initiatives that need to happen in schools without a robust infrastructure, the appropriate devices, secure networks, and everything else….At some point, schools have to enter into partnership with a selected vendor to deliver a piece of the plan.”

P21 helpfully provides a list of acceptable vendors.

Lynne Munson and James Elias