The Iowa Core speaks!

Perhaps I should just let the standards speak for themselves. Force yourself through this, from the introduction to the Iowa Core’s section on 21st Century Skills:

As each Iowa student is provided access to essential concepts and meaningful learning experiences in the core academic content areas, it is imperative that we also look to 21st century skills to build capacity in students so they are prepared to lead productive, satisfying lives. According to Ken Kay, president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the 21st century skills set “is the ticket to economic upward mobility in the new economy” (Gewertz, 2007). Business and industry is providing a very clear message that students need the skills to “work comfortably with people from other cultures, solve problems creatively, write and speak well, think in a multidisciplinary way, and evaluate information critically. And they need to be punctual, dependable, and industrious.” (Gewertz, 2007).

The Framework for 21st Century Learning stated, “We believe schools must move beyond a focus on basic competency in core subjects to promoting understanding of academic content at much higher levels by weaving 21st century interdisciplinary themes into core subjects” (2007). 21st century skills bridge the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of students from the core academic areas to real life application.

“The primary aim of education is not to enable students to do well in school, but to help them do well in the lives they lead outside of the school.”

-Ray McNulty, ICLE
Iowa High School Summit, December 10, 2007

Descriptions of the new global reality are plentiful, and the need for new, 21st century skills in an increasingly complex environment is well documented. In one form or another, authors cite (1) the globalization of economics; (2) the explosion of scientific and technological knowledge; (3) the increasingly international dimensions of the issues we face, i.e. global warming and pandemic diseases; and (4) changing demographic as the major trends that have resulted in a future world much different from the one that many of us faced when we graduated from high school (Friedman, 2005 and Stewart, 2007). The trends are very clear that each Iowa students will need essential 21st century skills to lead satisfying lives in this current reality.

Descriptions of what constitute essential 21st century skills are plentiful as well. In the 2007 session, the Iowa Legislature established the Iowa 21st century framework as:
(1) civic literacy
(2) employability skills
(3) financial literacy
(4) health literacy
(5) technology literacy

Within this 21st century skill framework are the common strands of learning and innovation; communication, information, and technology; and, life and career skills. The development of the Iowa 21st century essential concepts and skills was a collaborative process engaging the expertise of p – 16 educators, business, and industry representatives. Sources used for this work included the 1991 SCANS report, What Work Requires of Schools, and Framework for 21st Century Learning, from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The committee surveyed the literature and endeavored to bring together the common elements of these frameworks. The members have outlined the concepts, dispositions and habits of mind believed essential for success in the 21st century.

For a document that can’t get enough of the word “literacy,” it sure is poorly written (not to mention poorly proofread). I would like to keep people who think and write this way as far away from my kids’ education as possible. Maybe there are people who are impressed by this kind of pompous bureaucratese, and who swoon at the thought that “business and industry is providing a very clear message” about what “each Iowa students will need.” (It has citations, so it must be indisputably true!) For the rest of us, I’m afraid this is the closest thing we have to a Berlitz guide to this kind of edu-speak.
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