“Critical thinking” is all the rage in schools, counters writes Chester E. Finn, Jr. in Education Next. “As construed and applied” in our schools it may contribute to “truth decay.” Teaching thinking skills often replaces teaching “actual information,” Finn writes. How often have you heard education savants and practitioners say something like this: “In the age of the internet, we don’t need to supply kids with information. That they can always look up. What we must do is wor

“Now, what I want is Facts,” said Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens’ Hard Times. “Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.” Before the Common Core, did teachers ask students to memorize facts without understanding? That’s a myth, argues Sandra Stotsky, who helped develop Massachusetts’ pr