What is the Core Knowledge Sequence?

A Coherent, Cumulative, and Content-Specific Curriculum

• The idea behind the Core Knowledge Sequence is simple and powerful: knowledge builds on knowledge. For the sake of academic excellence, greater fairness, and higher literacy, Core Knowledge provides a core curriculum that is coherent, cumulative, and content-specific in order to help children establish strong foundations of knowledge, grade by grade.
• If all of our children are to be fully educated and participate equally in civic life, then we must provide each of them with the shared body of knowledge that makes literacy and communication possible. This concept, so central to the Core Knowledge Foundation’s goal of excellence and equity in education, takes shape in the Core Knowledge Sequence—a pioneering attempt to outline the specific core of shared knowledge that all children should learn in American schools.
• The Core Knowledge Sequence and the Core Knowledge Preschool Sequence are detailed outlines of specific content (and skills) taught in English/language arts, history, geography, mathematics, science, and the fine arts.

Academic Excellence

• All the most successful educational systems in the world teach a common body of knowledge in the early grades. They do this because as both research and common sense demonstrate, we learn new knowledge by building on what we already know. It is important to begin building foundations of knowledge in the early grades because that is when children are most receptive, and because academic deficiencies in the first six grades can permanently impair the quality of later schooling.

Greater Fairness

• Only by specifying the knowledge children should share can we guarantee equal access to that knowledge. In our current system, disadvantaged children especially suffer from low expectations that translate into watered down curricula. In schools using the Core Knowledge Sequence, however, disadvantaged children, like all children, are exposed to a coherent core of challenging, interesting knowledge. This knowledge not only provides a strong foundation for later learning, but also makes up common ground for communication in a diverse society.

Higher Literacy

• Children create understanding by building on what they already know. They learn best when they are offered an engaging, challenging, and content-rich curriculum that builds and grows from year to year. As the heart of a school’s curriculum, the Core Knowledge Sequenceprovides a solid foundation for literacy and learning that promotes academic excellence for all learners, while remaining flexible enough to meet state and local standards. The Sequenceis not a list of facts, events, and dates to be memorized. It is a guide to content from grade to grade, designed to encourage steady academic growth and progress as children construct their knowledge and develop literacy and critical thinking skills year after year.

Strong Foundations of Knowledge, Grade by Grade

• The result of a lengthy process of research and consensus-building by the Core Knowledge Foundation, the Sequence is distinguished by its breadth and specificity. While most state or district standards and curricula provide general guidelines concerning skills students should obtain and master, they typically offer little help in deciding specific content. The specific content in the Sequence provides a solid foundation on which to build skills instruction. Moreover, because the Sequence builds knowledge systematically year by year, it helps prevent repetition and gaps in instruction that can result from vague curricular guidelines (for example, repeated units on “Pioneer Days” or “Saving the Rain Forest;” or inadequate attention to the Bill of Rights, or to the geography of Africa; et cetera).

Educational Excellence and Equity for All Children
© 2011 The Core Knowledge Foundation | 801 E. High Street | Charlottesville, VA 22902
Phone:(434) 977-7550                 | Fax: (434) 977-0021

Benefits of Core Knowledge

All Stakeholders Benefit From a Coherent, Cumulative, and Content-Specific Curriculum
For Students
Core Knowledge:

• provides a broad base of knowledge and the rich vocabulary needed for reading achievement and academic success.

For Schools
Core Knowledge:

• provides a plan for coherent, sequenced learning from grade to grade,
• promotes teamwork and a school-wide focus,
• enables schools to work more effectively while meeting and exceeding state standards.

For School Districts
Core Knowledge:

• decreases the learning gaps caused by student mobility,
• provides a strong foundation of knowledge for success in high school and beyond,
• creates a common focus to share knowledge and expertise,
• encourages cooperation among schools to provide a quality learning experiences for all students.

For Parents and Communities
Core Knowledge:

• enhances accountability and parental engagement by providing a clear outline of what children are expected to learn in school,
• provides a common ground for communication–in school and in life.

 Educational Excellence and Equity for All Children
© 2011 The Core Knowledge Foundation | 801 E. High Street | Charlottesville, VA 22902
Phone: (434) 977-7550 | Fax: (434) 977-0021

About the Curriculum

"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.