Rediscovering the Liberal Arts

Chester Finn’s conservative Fordham Institute recently held a conference focusing on the importance of a liberal arts education. It’s strange and interesting to see those who have been such strident supporters of basic skills curricula and test-driven accountability suddenly decide that curriculum narrowing is a real problem and that there might be some drawbacks to “schooling conceived primarily as a service commodity whose priority is to serve the economic interests of students and those they’ll one day work for.” (Although they haven’t changed their spots entirely– “adding subjects to the test docket” is advocated as a key way to make sure the liberal arts get taught.) You can read the papers from the conference or watch a webcast here.