Antonia Cortese, CO-CHAIR OF COMMON CORE and SECRETARY-TREASURER OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS (AFT). Overseeing the development of the organization’s education policies, Ms. Cortese chairs the AFT Task Force on No Child Left Behind. Among her professional activities, she serves on the board of the Learning First Alliance, a national coalition of major education organizations. She is also co-chair of the Child Labor Coalition, a member of the Freedom House board of trustees, and a member of the United Way of America board of trustees.

Ms. Cortese was appointed to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Civic Education and Separation of Powers. Previously, she served on the executive committee and as a member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, which develops and administers assessments leading to the certification of accomplished teachers. Ms. Cortese has served as an appointee of the U.S. Department of Education to the National Assessment Governing Board, which is responsible for the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Ms. Cortese has served as an officer of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), an organization that represents more than 575,000 people in New York’s public schools, colleges, universities, and health facilities. She was a vice president of NYSUT’s predecessor, the New York State Teachers’ Association, where she oversaw the union’s bi-weekly newspaper and was responsible for NYSUT’s wide-ranging, nationally respected Division of Research and Educational Services. She also served as a vice president of the New York State AFL-CIO.

A graduate of Utica College of Syracuse University, Ms. Cortese began her education career in her native Rome, New York, as a fourth-grade teacher and school social worker. Her teacher union involvement originated as a building representative for the Rome Teachers’ Association, for which she later served as secretary, vice president, and two terms as president.

June 2, 2009 • 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 and Education Week’s take here.

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Want to learn more about our recent panel questioning the tenets of the 21st century skills movement? See what NYU historian Diane Ravitch, Core Knowledge founder E.D. Hirsch, UVA cognitive scientist Dan Willingham, and Partnership for 21st Century Skills president Ken Kay have to say in this brief, seven-minute video.

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Watch the entire panel discussion (approximately 2 hours). To view the video in full screen mode, click on the full screen icon in the video menu bar. And read coverage of the panel in USA Today and Education Week. The full text of panelists' presentations can be found here.

Common Core's report shows a nation STILL AT RISK. Nearly a quarter of students polled could not identify Adolf Hitler and half had no idea what the Renaissance was. To learn more read the report, press release or stories at ABC News, CBS News, The New York Times, and USA TODAY. Or take the test yourself.

Read Emory Professor Mark Bauerlein on the Partnership for 21st Century Skills

"Anybody who has sat in on curriculum meetings and projects in the humanities has experienced those awkward moments when it comes down to selecting certain contents and materials as essential and required. Traditionalists in the room want to identify core texts, events, figures, and ideas, and on various grounds of historical influence, civic inheritance, and aesthetic virtue they stick with a generally Eurocentric tradition."

Full article