Debating the Common Core
St. Francis College presented a debate on the heatedly discussed Common Core Curriculum between Sol Stern of the Manhattan Institute and Peter Wood of the National Association of Scholars on Monday, October 20, at 12:30 in the College’s Maroney Forum for Arts, Culture and Education.
The two will offer insight on whether the Common Core advances or undermines academic achievement.
The event was organized by St. Francis Scholar in Residence Fred Siegel, a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of The Revolt Against The Masses: How Liberalism Undermined the Middle Class. He has been instrumental in bringing a number of timely and provocative events to the College, including: New York’s New Digital Media, The Tension Between Catholic Schools & Charter Schools, Can You be Both a Business Success and Ethically Noble? and Lincoln, Grant and the Civil War.
About the Speakers
Sol Stern is a contributing editor of City Journal and a Manhattan Institute senior fellow. He writes passionately on education reform and his writings on that topic have helped shape the terms of the current debate in New York City.
Stern is the author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice. Aside from his work in City Journal, Stern’s articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, Commentary, The New Republic, the New York Daily News, Newsday, the Village Voice, New York Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and The New Statesmen.
Peter Wyatt Wood is an anthropologist and former provost. He was appointed president of the National Association of Scholars in January 2009. Before that he served as NAS’s executive director (2007-2008), and as provost of The King’s College in New York City (2005-2007).
Dr. Wood is the author of A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now (Encounter Books, 2007) and of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (Encounter Books, 2003) which won the Caldwell Award for Leadership in Higher Education from the John Locke Foundation. These books extend his anthropological interest in examining emergent themes in modern American culture.