Excerpt from letter to the Bridging Differences blog at EdWeek...What I want to argue out with you, and our readers, is the nature of the kind of curriculum or subject matter for which schools in a democratic society, funded by public monies, should be held accountable. What can we demonstrate is essential for 100 percent of all voters—18-year-olds—to understand?
1. Reading the newspapers or non-fiction magazines—or their equivalent. Being able to report to others on stories, engage in a discussion about them, and write a letter to the editor and op-ed column on a few with which they disagree. Maybe on two levels—one at around ages 11-12 and the other at 16-18.
2. Sufficient mathematics to make sense of what they find in the media—statistics, probabilities, forms of graphing, percentages, et al to a high degree of sophistication by the time they are 16. Basic arithmetic computation by 13.
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