What is the Core Knowledge Sequence?

The  Core Knowledge Sequence  is a consensus-based model of specific content guidelines that, as the basis of about 50% of a school's curriculum, can provide a solid, coherent foundation of learning for students in the elementary and middle grades.

The Sequence offers a planned progression of specific knowledge in history, geography, mathematics, science, language arts, and fine arts. It represents a first and ongoing attempt to state specifically a core of shared knowledge that children should learn in American schools. It should be emphasized the Core Knowledge Sequence is not a list of facts to be memorized. Rather, it is a guide to coherent content from grade to grade, designed to encourage steady academic progress as children build their knowledge and skills from one year to the next.

The Core Knowledge Sequence is distinguished by its specificity. While most state or district curricula provide general guidelines concerning skills, they typically offer little help in deciding specific content. The specific content in the Core Knowledge Sequence provides a solid foundation in which to ground instructional skills. Moreover, because the Sequence offers a coherent plan that builds year by year, it helps prevent the many repetitions and gaps in instruction that can result from regular curricular guidelines (for example, repeated units on "Pioneer Days", "Saving the Rain Forest",inadequate attention to the Bill of Rights, adding fractions with unlike denominators, or African geography).

Core Knowledge Promotes Excellence and Fairness

Excellence: All the most successful educational systems in the world teach a core 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 few grades can permanently impair the quality of later schooling.

Fairness: Only by specifying the knowledge that all children should share can we guarantee equal access to that knowledge. In our current system some children suffer from low expectations compared to children that are exposed to a coherent core of challenging, interesting knowledge. This knowledge not only provides a foundation for learning, but also makes up the common ground for communication in a diverse society.