Debating “21st Century Skills”
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A Challenge to P21
A group of prominent scholars, teachers, education reform advocates, and union leaders — including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, former Boston University President John Silber, New York University education historian Diane Ravitch, and Democrats for Education Reform co-founders Kevin Chavous and Whitney Tilson — issued a statement today expressing concern about the program put forth by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) and calling for its revision.
The Partnership for 19th Century Skills
Do you think civility, honor, self-discipline, industriousness, and idealism are — and always have been — important qualities? And ones that should be promoted in our schools? Diane Ravitch suggested as much in a blog she wrote for Common Core this summer. So we’ve decided to launch P19, a group that advocates for 19th century skills now. Click here to join.
Common Core has been critical of the idea that our children’s education should be organized around a set of so-called “21st century skills” instead of core academic subjects such as history, science, and the arts. Read more about this debate:
- UCLA's Mike Rose explains the troubling implications of the 21st century skills movement.
- Andy Rotherham and Dan Willingham explain the challenges facing the 21st century skills movement in Educational Leadership.
- Education experts weigh in on the 21st century skills movement at National Journal.
- Read the full text of remarks from our February 24, 2009 panel on 21st century skills, featuring Diane Ravitch, E.D. Hirsch, Jr., and Dan Willingham. (PDF format)
- View highlights of our February 2009 panel:
Click here for video of the complete panel discussion (approximately 2 hours). - USAToday covers our February 2009 panel discussion on 21st century skills.
- EducationWeek provides comprehensive coverage of the same event.
- Emory University’s Mark Bauerlein declares that the 21st century skills movement erodes cultural literacy.
- Renowned education historian Diane Ravitch calls for a new partnership for 19th century skills. Want to join the 19th century skills movement? Click here.
- We encourage everyone to read the Pioneer Institute’s outstanding policy briefs on 21st century skills here and here.
- The Washington Post’s Jay Mathews thinks that 21st century skills is the “latest doomed pedagogical fad.”
- How long have “21st century skills” been around? For about 21 centuries, says EducationSector’s Andy Rotherham.
- Find out what P21 says about its program when it thinks no one’s listening.
- Follow our coverage of the 21st Century Skills Incentive Fund Act here and here.
- Learn how the board members of P21 stand to profit from skill-based education: here and here.
- Find out why the Boston Globe believes everyone should be skeptical of the 21st century skills movement: A 21st-Century Caution • 21st-Century Skeptics
- And learn why the Boston Herald opposes the effort to dumb down Massachusetts’ standards by introducing 21st century skills.
- Education writer Alfie Kohn has a modest proposal — students need to get 22nd century skills.
- Sandra Stotsky, in a letter to EdWeek, echoes Why We’re Behind – we should build on models that provide a content-rich education rather than embrace faddish 21st century skills.
- Check out Robert Pondiscio’s “21st Century Skills: A Guide for Clear Thinkers” at the Core Knowledge blog.
- Find out why Thomas Birmingham and E.D. Hirsch believe that the 21st century skills movement will dumb down education.
- Read Charles Chieppo and Jim Stergios in the Boston Globe, arguing that we need to teach content before skills.
Blog
News
May 7 • Common Core receives glowing reviews for professional development offered in Beaufort County, NC. Read the full story in the Washington Daily News.
April 25 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson comments on the pressures of high stakes testing and the effect it can have on student learning in Roberta Munoz’s article “Make it of Break it: High Stakes Testing Pros and Cons” on Education.com
April 4 • Common Core has announced that the New York State Department of Education has awarded it two contracts to develop
Pre-Kindergarten-5th grade mathematics curriculum aligned to NY State’s Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS). News release.
April 3 • Common Core Creating Math Maps for New York State. News release.
March 27 • Common Core has announced that it is developing a series of CCSS-aligned K-8 curriculum maps in history and geography. News release.
March 21 • Check out Education Week’s coverage of Common Core’s “Truant From Schools: History, Science, and Art” event!
March 15 • Common Core releases data showing curriculum narrowing affecting all students.
March 9 • Common Core celebrates Virginia’s decision to abandon SB185, a bill that would have eliminated state mandated science and social studies testing for third graders. You can read more about this issue, and Common Core’s advocacy work, in this recent blog entry.
December 8 • Check out Education Week’s coverage of Common Core’s recent national survey of school teachers.
November 14 • Read Lynne Munson’s response to the latest NAEP results. Joanne Jacobs’s “Linking and Thinking on Education” and the Core Knowledge blog also highlighted her piece.
September 15 • A new Salon.com article highlights Common Core’s upcoming study on curriculum narrowing and quotes Executive Director Lynne Munson: “We were surprised at the extremity of the narrowing indicated by the teachers who took our survey.”
July 22 • Common Core releases new, second edition of its popular Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts. News Release
May 6 • Common Core's Curriculum Maps for ELA have exceeded 2 million page views.
February 24 • Common Core's Lynne Munson writes on "What Students Really Need to Learn" in the lastest issue of ASCD's Educational Leadership.
January 5 • Common Core’s Curriculum Maps for English Language Arts have exceeded one million views. See the press release here.
December 8 • Last week, the North Carolina State Board of Education approved revised social studies standards. Thanks to input from Common Core, among others, North Carolina's students will now take four social studies courses, including two US history courses covering the European exploration of the New World through contemporary time.
October 18 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson participates in a New America Foundation panel of leaders working to bring technology into classrooms in innovative ways. Watch a video of the discussion here.
October 11 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson gives Ed Week her perspective on 21st-century learning: "Twenty-first-century technology should be seen as an opportunity to acquire more knowledge, not an excuse to know less."
October 4 • California Governor vetoes curriculum narrowing bill. Opposed by Common Core, the bill would have effectively eliminated the state’s arts and foreign language high school graduation requirement. More...
Spring 2010 • The new issue of the AFT’s American Educator shines a light on 21st century skills, featuring contributions from Common Core’s Lynne Munson and Laura Bornfreund, eduwonk Andy Rotherham and UVA’s Dan Willingham, Diana Senechal, and Diane Ravitch.
December 4 • EdWeek profile questions motives of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 5
November 10 • You can now read Diane Ravitch’s op/ed on 21st century skills in the Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Metro West Daily News, Lowell Sun, and Quincy Patriot Ledger.
November 3 • Education Week highlights Common Core’s concerns about the appointment of a P21 leader to a key Dept. of Education post.
November • Lynne Munson and Richard Kessler explain why arts education is vital in the November 2009 issue of Parenting magazine.
October 10 • Diane Ravitch’s recent op/ed on 21st century skills has been reprinted in the Providence Journal.
September 16 • A group of prominent scholars, teachers, education reform advocates, and union leaders issued a statement today expressing concern about the program put forth by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) and calling for its revision. Press Advisory (pdf)
September 15 • Common Core’s Diane Ravitch shows how dated the idea of “21st century skills” really is in the Boston Globe
July 13 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson raises concerns about national standards at convention of the American Federation of Teachers. (PDF document)
July 9 • In USAToday Common Core’s Lynne Munson argues that a comprehensive education is more likely than a STEM education to produce new scientists.
July 2 • A USAToday editorial cites and links to Common Core’s “Still at Risk” study which showed how little our 17-year-olds know about history and literature.
June 2 • Common Core releases Why We’re Behind: What Top Nations Teach Their Students But We Don’t, a report showing that the nations that consistently outrank us on international comparison tests provide their students with a fulsome education in the liberal arts and sciences. Why is this news? Because the U.S. is moving further and further away from this model. Read brief excerpts from the documents featured in the report here.
