Knowledge, skills are not mutually exclusive goals

WE WRITE to address the inaccurate assertions made by Kathleen Madigan, a member of the Pioneer Institute's Center for School Reform Advisory Board, who claimed that Joe Williams and I hold opposing positions on education standards, in an op-ed based on an outmoded straw-man debate Madigan constructed between knowledge and skills ("A repackaged education proposal," Feb. 14).

I have never made the arguments Madigan asserts: that a focus on skills should replace content, or that achievement gaps are caused by tests. In fact, I have been an advocate of standards-based reform, and my research shows that achievement gaps derive from disparities in resources, including teaching quality, not from tests themselves.

Democrats for Education Reform, of which Williams is executive director, holds no position on standards-based reform but supports internationally benchmarked national standards outlining the knowledge and skills students need to be successful in today's world, a view with which I agree. We note that many of the Core Knowledge schools of E.D. Hirsch, whom Madigan cites in her attempt to polarize, develop solid knowledge and rigorous thinking skills through a project-based curriculum, defying the silly idea that we can't develop both knowledge and skills in our schools.

We believe the United States needs to join the rest of the world in creating 21st-century schools that will enable our children to learn more powerfully. We welcome the debates needed to accomplish this. However, the search for solutions should not be undermined by the failed ideological divisions of the past.

Linda Darling-Hammond
Stanford, Calif.
Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommon professor of education at Stanford University. This letter was written in conjunction with Joe Williams.