Stubborn Things

"In fact, Hirsch is and always has been a liberal Democrat. Far from being elitist, he insists, cultural literacy is the path to educational equality and full citizenship for the nation’s minority groups. 'Cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children,' Hirsch writes, and 'the only reliable way of combating the social determinism that now condemns them to remain in the same social and educational condition as their parents. That children from poor and illiterate homes tend to remain poor and illiterate is an unacceptable failure of our schools, one which has occurred not because our teachers are inept but chiefly because they are compelled to teach a fragmented curriculum based on faulty educational theories.'"

Sol Stern praises E. D. Hirsch in City Journal.