Special Edition: Annual Report 2004

Board of Trustees

James M. Cooper Commonwealth Professor of Education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, Dean of the Curry School from 1984-1994

Sandra Feldman
President of the American Federation of Teachers, member of the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO  

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Chairman and Polly Hirsch
Professor Hirsch is the author of ten books, including works of scholarship in the Romantic period.  His views on education reform are widely published and include the books Cultural Literacy and The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them.   He is also editor of the six-book series, What Your Kindergartner-Sixth Grader Needs to Know.  Polly and Don Hirsch founded Core Knowledge Foundation in 1986.

Marion Joseph
Member of the California State Board of Education from 1997 to 2003  

William J. Moloney
Colorado Commissioner of Education and Secretary for the State Board of Education since 1997  

Diane Ravitch
Research Professor of Education at New York University and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, former Assistant Secretary of Education  

Robert J. Reid
Executive Director of the J. F. Maddox Foundation of Hobbs, New Mexico since 1995.  Former CEO of several healthcare corporations  

Sandra Scarr, Treasurer
Professor of Psychology Emerita, University of Virginia, formerly on the faculties of Yale University and the University of Minnesota, formerly CEO and Chairman of the Board of Kindercare Learning Centers, Inc.

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The Newsletter of the Core Knowledge^® Foundation
Special Edition: Annual Report 2004

A Message From The President

Dear Friends of Core Knowledge,

In my first year as president of the Core Knowledge Foundation I have experienced not a knowledge gap, but an expectation gap. The challenges and rewards of the job have far exceeded even my most optimistic expectations. Throughout the year I have been amazed to learn how large an impact such a small organization has had on educational reform in this country.  I am pleased to know that my plans for the future of this organization will be built on the strong foundation laid by those who came before me, a foundation that mirrors the curriculum itself in being: solid, sequenced, specific, and shared.  

I have visited schools in New York City, Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Michigan, where I have seen first graders respond enthusiastically to a lesson on Mayan culture and fifth graders grapple with probability theory. I've heard teachers say that working with a curriculum that showed coherence from grade to grade and made connections from subject to subject has immeasurably enriched their professional lives. I know that the Teacher Handbooks now in preparation will enhance this positive experience.  I have been pleased to know that the standards adopted in some states, notably Minnesota and Colorado, appear to have been influenced by our curriculum — a solid achievement indeed.  I am delighted to see the tremendous growth of our preschool program and to see how hard our schools department has worked to identify visitation sites to showcase some of our high-achieving schools and to attract new schools with models of success.  

Much of this year has been devoted to internal organization, putting in place a comprehensive business plan and, in concert with the staff, writing a new constitution to codify our values and principles and to identify those strategies and goals that will guide our future over the next several years.  To view this Constitution, click here.  A new performance evaluation and incentive pay plan was developed to offer the staff a sense of participatory management and creative control over their work objectives.  I have also constructed a business plan and I am working with our Board of Trustees to develop a new marketing and public relations outreach that will move Core Knowledge to center stage in transforming American education.  I am being guided throughout this process by the invaluable advice of the Core Knowledge board, including the four new members recently added. I look forward to their continued guidance as we pursue, together, new and more outward-looking challenges next year.

 Lastly, I have been grateful for the support of those foundations that have been our funding partners in the great venture of educational reform. This year, as well as in past years, The Walton Foundation, the Abell and Weinberg Foundation, the Brown Foundation, the Olin Foundation, and the Maddox Foundation have supported our efforts to serve both preschool and K-8 schools with curriculum and professional guidance. As a non-profit organization we dispense services and are enabled to keep the charge for these services as low as possible, in large part as a result of the generous help provided by these foundations.  Their help is also crucial in developing new initiatives and funding innovative reform efforts, as you will see throughout this report.  

To the teachers, administrators, and parents within our network, to our hard-working independent coordinators in Colorado and Texas, our many consultants throughout the country, to our staff in Charlottesville and in San Antonio and to our supporters everywhere, I want to thank you for a great welcome and a great year.  

Sincerely,  

Barbara Garvin-Kester, Ed.D.  

Barbara Garvin-Kester, Ed.D.

Annual Report Home

Bridging the Knowledge Gap/ Highlights for 2003/ A Message from The President/ Building Bridges to Schools/ Building Bridges with Words/ Bridging the Content Gap in Teacher Education/ Connecting to Core Knowledge Teachers: 2003 Conference/ A Bridge to Literacy: The Reading Program/ Preschool: Paving the Way to Future Learning/ Bridging the Way to New Alliances/ Financial Status

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