The idea behind Core Knowledge is simple and powerful: knowledge builds on knowledge. The more you know, the more you are able to learn. This insight, well-established by cognitive science, has profound implications for teaching and learning. Nearly all of our most important goals for education–greater reading comprehension, the ability to think critically and solve problems, even higher test scores–are a function of the depth and breadth of our knowledge.

By outlining the precise content that every child should learn in language arts and literature, history and geography, mathematics, science, music, and the visual arts, the Core Knowledge curriculum represents a first-of-its kind effort to identify the foundational knowledge every child needs to reach these goals–and to teach it, grade-by-grade, year-by-year, in a coherent, age-appropriate sequence.

For the sake of academic excellence, greater equity and higher literacy, elementary and middle schools need to teach a coherent, cumulative, and content-specific core curriculum.

Our society cannot afford a two-tiered system in which the affluent have access to a superior education, while everyone else is subjected to a dull and incoherent classroom experience. Academic excellence, educational equity and fairness demands a strong foundation of knowledge for all learners. — E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

Coherent

The Core Knowledge Sequence is predicated on the realization that what children are able to learn at any given moment depends on what they already know–and, equally important, that what they know is a function of previous experience and teaching. Although current events and technology are constantly changing, there is a body of lasting knowledge and skills that form the core of a strong preschool—Grade 8 curriculum. Explicit identification of what children should learn at each grade level ensures a coherent approach to building knowledge across all grade levels. Every child should learn the fundamentals of science, basic principles of government, important events in world history, essential elements of mathematics, widely acknowledged masterpieces of art and music from around the world, and stories and poems passed down from generation to generation.

Cumulative

Core Knowledge provides a clear outline of content to be learned grade by grade so that knowledge, language, and skills build cumulatively from year to year. This sequential building of knowledge not only helps ensure that children enter each new grade ready to learn, it also helps prevent the repetitions and gaps that so often characterize current education. No more repeated units in multiple years on the rain forest, with little or no attention to the Bill of Rights, world geography, or exposure to other cultures. Core Knowledge sets high expectations for all children that are achievable thanks to the cumulative, sequential way that knowledge and skills builds. Teachers in Core Knowledge schools have assurance that children will emerge well prepared with a shared body of knowledge and skills.

Content-Specific

A typical state or district curriculum says, “Students will demonstrate knowledge of people, events, ideas, and movements that contributed to the development of the United States.” But which people and events? Which ideas and movements? The Core Knowledge Sequence is distinguished by its specificity. By clearly specifying important knowledge in language arts, history, geography, math, science, and the fine arts, the Core Knowledge Sequence presents a practical answer to the question, “What do our children need to know?”  Teachers are free to devote their energies and efforts to creatively planning how to teach the content to the children in their classrooms.

Every Child Deserves Equal Access to Common Knowledge

Every person in a diverse democratic society deserves equal access to the common knowledge base that draws together its people, while recognizing our differing traditions and contributions.

Offering universal access to this shared knowledge is a primary duty of schooling, critical to literacy, and to the closing of the achievement gap between ethnic and racial groups.

Most important of all, shared knowledge, a shared narrative, and shared ideals of liberty and tolerance are indispensable ingredients for effective citizenship and for the perpetuation of our democratic institutions.

The Core Knowledge Foundation is guided by the following principles:

• Our work is not driven by ideology, but logically by science, history, and research.
  
• For the sake of academic excellence, greater equity, and higher literacy, elementary and middle schools need to teach a coherent, cumulative, and content-specific core curriculum.
  
• The persistent gap in reading achievement in U.S. schools can never be reduced until the knowledge gap is reduced. And the knowledge gap will not be reduced unless broad, rich content knowledge is integrated into the many hours devoted to language arts instruction.
  
• We recognize that every school and community is different, and each student and teacher has individual interests and strengths. Schools teaching the Core Knowledge curriculum should still have ample time over the course of the school year to address any additional state or local requirements not reflected in the Core Knowledge Sequence.
  
• An effective curriculum must be coupled with effective teaching. We believe teaching excellence requires a mastery of subject matter, as well as the ability to engage students, build language competency, use assessment to drive instruction, scaffold instruction to meet individual needs, and provide targeted feedback to students to further shape their learning.

• We need to see the reading comprehension problem for what it primarily is–a knowledge problem. There is no way around the need for children to gain broad general knowledge in order to gain broad general proficiency in reading.  — E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

Core Knowledge can be blended with other approaches and programs such as Differentiated Instruction, Multiple Intelligences, Technology/Computer Use and Foreign Languages.