E.D. Hirsch Biography

Hirsch is the founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation and professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several acclaimed books on education issues including the best-seller Cultural Literacy. With his subsequent books The Schools We Need and Why We Dont Have Them The Knowledge Deficit and The Making of Americans Dr. Hirsch solidified his reputation as one of the most influential education reformers of our time.
A highly regarded English professor and literary critic earlier in his career Dr. Hirsch describes being shocked into education reform while doing research on written composition. Conducting research at a pair of colleges in Virginia he discovered that while the relative readability of a text was an important factor in determining a students ability to comprehend a passage an even more important factor was the students background knowledge.
African-American students at a Richmond community college could read just as well as University of Virginia students when the topic was roommates or car traffic but they could not read passages about Lees surrender to Grant Dr. Hirsch recalled. They had not been taught the various things that they needed to know to understand ordinary texts addressed to a general audience. The results were shocking. What had the schools been doing? I decided to devote myself to helping right the wrong that is being done to such students he said.

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