Core Knowledge backs common core

EdWeek reports:

The Core Knowledge Foundation, which criticized an early version of common-core standards for putting too much emphasis on academic skills and too little on content, has decided to align its central curriculum sequence to the revised standards and make it available for free.
The decision by the 24-year-old foundation, which is shaped by founder E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s belief that all children need a command of a specific body of knowledge to be “culturally literate,” means that later this month it will stop charging $35 per copy for its K-8 Core Knowledge Sequence and will instead give away the 218-page book, either in hard copy by mail or by download from its Web site, its officials told Education Week.

This shift is welcome news. E.D Hirsch's core argument about literacy (summarized in earlier prichblog posts here) is a convincing one, and it's great news that he and the foundation now see the common core as a vehicle for pushing forward the knowledge students need to succeed as adult citizens.