At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the painting "El Jaleo"--a canvas spanning 11 feet that features a flamenco dancer--is a popular starting point for getting students to spend time with a work of art. But viewing and discussing the 1882 piece by the American artist John Singer Sargent isn't just a cultural experience. It…

The Common Core State Standards aren't exactly new; it's been two years since most states adopted them. But it took those two years for the standards to trickle down from abstraction to daily practice, from a sheaf of papers in a state capital into a lesson plan on a teacher's desk. Now they're reshaping reading instruction in significant ways.…