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LYNNE MUNSON has served as President and Executive Director of Common Core since its founding in 2007. In five short years Munson has made Common Core an influential advocate for the liberal arts and sciences and a noted provider of CCSS-based curriculum tools. Common Core’s research has launched widespread public discussions over the narrowing of the curriculum. Common Core’s ELA Maps were the first new curriculum tool created to implement the CCSS. Printed by Jossey-Bass/Wiley and with over five million online views, the Maps are shaping CCSS implementation in a demographically diverse array of states and districts nationwide.
Lynne was deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from 2001–2005, overseeing all agency operations. NEH is an independent agency of the federal government that funds scholarly and public projects in the humanities. Lynne conceived of “Picturing America,” the most successful public humanities project in NEH history. The project put more than 75,000 sets of fine art images and teaching guides into libraries, K-12 classrooms, and Head Start centers. In 2005 Lynne led the first post-conflict United States government delegation to Afghanistan to deal with issues of cultural reconstruction. In 2004, she represented the United States at UNESCO meetings in Australia and Japan, where she helped to negotiate guidelines for cross-border higher education.
Lynne is also a research fellow at the Institute for Jewish and Community Research where she writes on the issue of higher education endowment spending. In September 2007, Ms. Munson testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the issue of college and university endowment hoarding and has advised Senate staff regarding potential policy remedies in this area.
In 1998 and 1999 Ms. Munson provided expert testimony on higher education remediation programs to the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York and the Mayor’s Advisory Task Force on CUNY Reform.
From 1993–2001 Lynne was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where she wrote Exhibitionism: Art in an Era of Intolerance (Ivan R. Dee, 2000), a book examining the evolution of art institutions and art education. Lynne has written on contemporary cultural and educational issues for numerous national publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Inside Higher Education, and NRO.com’s The Corner. She has appeared on CNN, FoxNews, CNBC, C-SPAN, and NPR and speaks to scholarly and public audiences. She serves on the advisory board for the Pioneer Institute’s Center for School Reform. Her degree in art history is from Northwestern University.
Blog
News
December 8 • Check out Education Week’s coverage of Common Core’s recent national survey of school teachers.
November 14 • Read Lynne Munson’s response to the latest NAEP results. Joanne Jacobs’s “Linking and Thinking on Education” and the Core Knowledge blog also highlighted her piece.
September 15 • A new Salon.com article highlights Common Core’s upcoming study on curriculum narrowing and quotes Executive Director Lynne Munson: “We were surprised at the extremity of the narrowing indicated by the teachers who took our survey.”
July 22 • Common Core releases new, second edition of its popular Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts. News Release
May 6 • Common Core's Curriculum Maps for ELA have exceeded 2 million page views.
February 24 • Common Core's Lynne Munson writes on "What Students Really Need to Learn" in the lastest issue of ASCD's Educational Leadership.
January 5 • Common Core’s Curriculum Maps for English Language Arts have exceeded one million views. See the press release here.
December 8 • Last week, the North Carolina State Board of Education approved revised social studies standards. Thanks to input from Common Core, among others, North Carolina's students will now take four social studies courses, including two US history courses covering the European exploration of the New World through contemporary time.
October 18 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson participates in a New America Foundation panel of leaders working to bring technology into classrooms in innovative ways. Watch a video of the discussion here.
October 11 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson gives Ed Week her perspective on 21st-century learning: "Twenty-first-century technology should be seen as an opportunity to acquire more knowledge, not an excuse to know less."
October 4 • California Governor vetoes curriculum narrowing bill. Opposed by Common Core, the bill would have effectively eliminated the state’s arts and foreign language high school graduation requirement. More...
Spring 2010 • The new issue of the AFT’s American Educator shines a light on 21st century skills, featuring contributions from Common Core’s Lynne Munson and Laura Bornfreund, eduwonk Andy Rotherham and UVA’s Dan Willingham, Diana Senechal, and Diane Ravitch.
December 4 • EdWeek profile questions motives of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 5
November 10 • You can now read Diane Ravitch’s op/ed on 21st century skills in the Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Metro West Daily News, Lowell Sun, and Quincy Patriot Ledger.
November 3 • Education Week highlights Common Core’s concerns about the appointment of a P21 leader to a key Dept. of Education post.
November • Lynne Munson and Richard Kessler explain why arts education is vital in the November 2009 issue of Parenting magazine.
October 10 • Diane Ravitch’s recent op/ed on 21st century skills has been reprinted in the Providence Journal.
September 16 • A group of prominent scholars, teachers, education reform advocates, and union leaders issued a statement today expressing concern about the program put forth by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) and calling for its revision. Press Advisory (pdf)
September 15 • Common Core’s Diane Ravitch shows how dated the idea of “21st century skills” really is in the Boston Globe
July 13 • Common Core’s Lynne Munson raises concerns about national standards at convention of the American Federation of Teachers. (PDF document)
July 9 • In USAToday Common Core’s Lynne Munson argues that a comprehensive education is more likely than a STEM education to produce new scientists.
July 2 • A USAToday editorial cites and links to Common Core’s “Still at Risk” study which showed how little our 17-year-olds know about history and literature.
June 2 • Common Core releases Why We’re Behind: What Top Nations Teach Their Students But We Don’t, a report showing that the nations that consistently outrank us on international comparison tests provide their students with a fulsome education in the liberal arts and sciences. Why is this news? Because the U.S. is moving further and further away from this model. Read brief excerpts from the documents featured in the report here.
