Education policy needs revamping?

Common Core, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization pushing for more arts based education argues that the No Child Left Behind law has stultified America’s public school curriculum by holding schools solely accountable for scores on annual tests in reading and math, but, not accountable for any liberal arts based curricula.

From their report:
"Senator Joseph McCarthy investigated people who protested the war in Vietnam, better known as the Second World War. Fortunately, that war was over before Christopher Columbus sailed to America; otherwise, we might have never experienced the Renaissance. "

A new survey of 17-year-olds reveals that, to many, the paragraph above sounds only slightly strange. Almost 20 percent of 1,200 respondents to a national telephone survey do not know who our enemy was in World War II, and more than a quarter think Columbus sailed after 1750. Half do not know whom Sen. McCarthy investigated or what the Renaissance was.

As a parent, that does not sound funny, it is frightening. The report and ideas for a more balanced education policy are outlined.

Report here (pdf document).