Curriculum Matters

There's a ton of interest these days in the possibility of creating common academic standards across states, as a multistate effort led by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association rolls forward. So far, that project has focused on two subjects: math and English-language arts. Over the past couple months, I've also heard from educators and interested parties in other subjects, particularly science, asking "what about us?"

The answer: Your time could be coming soon.

Leaders of major science education organizations have already had preliminary discussions with folks from the NGA/CCSSO effort, known as Common Core State Standards Initiative, about cooperating on science standards. NGA and CCSSO officials have talked in fairly broad terms about eventually trying to forge common standards in other academic subjects. But after getting additional details from some of the people involved, I thought I'd put some of what is playing out behind the scenes on the record.

For about three years now, the National Science Teachers Association has been working on creating a new set of science standards. That project is known as "Anchors," and is being undertaken in cooperation with officials from Achieve, as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Research Council, two prestigious scientific organizations, the NSTA's executive director, Francis Eberle, explained in a recent interview. The NSTA, which has 58,000 members, has had tentative talks with Common Core folks about eventually merging "Anchors" with the Common Core, as opposed to producing two different documents, Eberle told me. "The hope is it's not a separate effort," he said. The goal is to bring more consistency to science lessons nationwide, he added, arguing that this would help "re-energize the field."

The AAAS and National Research Council, as many science teachers know, produced their own standards documents in the 1990s, which are widely cited in individual states' standards documents today. NSTA officials say they hope "Anchors" could draw from those documents but also present science in a more focused and streamlined way, placing an emphasis on major concepts in science. (I described the goals of "Anchors" in a story a few years ago.)

Dane Linn, who directs the education division at NGA's Center for Best Practices, confirmed that Common Core officials have had some tentative talks with folks involved in "Anchors." He also said that discussions have been held with various social studies organizations about future standards work in that area.

"We've heard from several states about their interest in moving into other subjects— particularly science—next," Linn said. Discussions with advocates from the social studies community, he added, are ongoing.

While the NGA and CCSSO officials don't want to put off the move into science and social studies for too long, Linn also emphasized that the organizations are determined to make sure that math and language arts are on solid ground before moving on. "We need to demonstrate success in the first two subjects we're focused on," he said.

If you've been following the standards push to this point, how easy or difficult do you think it would be to create multistate standards in science and social studies, compared to those in language arts and math?

Photo of student in science class by Dave Martin for Education Week.

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"Creation," a movie that focuses on Charles Darwin's groundbreaking scientific work and his questions about religious faith, has found a U.S. distributor, after something of a wait.

The British-made film, which stars Paul Bettany as Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Emma, will be distributed on this side of the pond by a company specializing in independent films, Newmarket. A story in the Hollywood Reporter has details. Landing a U.S. distributor potentially increases the biopic's reach into many more theaters. Newmarket has been involved in several notable films, the Reporter says, including "Memento" and "The Passion of the Christ." The film's inability to find a U.S. distributor was lamented by scientists, and by the film's own producer, Jeremy Thomas, who, according to the U.K.'s Telegraph, said he believed the delays were due to anticipated opposition from religious conservatives.

"It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America," Thomas is quoted as saying. "There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules."

It looks as if filmmakers have cleared that hurdle now. In a statement, Newmarket officials said they were aware that the film might raise hackles about those who don't accept evolutionary theory, but they felt that "Creation" was too good to pass up:

"We at Newmarket pride ourselves in getting behind important films that help open the door for discussion and conversation, as is the case with 'Creation,' said Newmarket's Chris Ball. " While Darwin's name has come to symbolize one side of a debate between the scientific and the theological, 'Creation' depicts the man as the debate in total, with both sides contending, sometimes violently, within him. In that sense, we believe that the film will appeal to people of faith and people of science."

Photo of Bettany, as Darwin, for the film "Creation."

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Back in August, my colleague Debbie Viadero blogged about a study that showed students recall more factual information when they read text and watch a movie about a historical event rather than if they only read about it. But the researchers for the study also pointed out that when historical movies have errors, and they document that many do, students are more likely to remember the film version, even if it's wrong.

Now Washington University in St. Louis, where the researchers who conducted the study work, has put out a press release about the study that includes a link to a slide show with historical inaccuracies in nine movies.

The 1984 movie "Amadeus," for example, depicts music composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as childish and vulgar when, in fact, no evidence shows he was like that in public. In fact, it's believed he had impeccable manners when relating to royalty and had a professional manner with colleagues, the researchers say.

I think the slide show would be a good tool to use with high school students to send the message that when they watch a historical movie, they should be skeptical about its accuracy.

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If you're worried about the ongoing ruckus over social studies standards in Texas devolving into a "Chavez vs. Franklin"-style battle, you might have legitimate concern, judging from this summary in the Associated Press.

The Texas state board of education is slated to discuss the proposed standards at a hearing today. Known as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, the standards guide textbook content and testing. Earlier this year, an expert panel working on the standards recommended that the attention paid to labor-rights activist Cesar Chavez be minimized and former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall be reduced, relative to figures like Ben Franklin, according to the AP. My colleague Mary Ann Zehr weighed in on the Texas debate last month.

The state board is considering changes to the proposed standards that would refer to the United States as a republic instead of a democracy and require students to be able to "identify prominent conservatives such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly," the AP says. The story suggests that some advocacy groups and others are counting liberal and conservative historical figures, in gathering evidence that one side or another is getting ignored.

"Liberals overwhelmingly outnumber those who are publicly known as conservatives," David Barton, a Republican activist on the board-appointed advisory panel, wrote in board documents about the proposals, according to the AP. The story says that he "counted 16 liberals in classroom lessons, including former President Bill Clinton, farmworkers' advocate Dolores Huerta, and feminist Betty Friedan, to seven conservatives, such as former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor."

Earlier this year, the board approved new science standards after a prolonged fight over the teaching of evolution. Not long afterward, Texas legislators voted to change the leadership of the state board of ed, a move aimed at reducing what some of them saw as an overly narrow focus on divisive cultural issues.

Wonder what those legislators are thinking now.

Photo of Cesar Chavez by Joel Levine

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The organization Common Core, which calls for giving students strong grounding across academic disciplines, has organized an open letter critiquing the program put forward by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and calling for the group to revise its goals.

That letter is signed by some big names in education policy, including Randi Weingarten, of the American Federation of Teachers; education historian Diane Ravitch; Core Knowledge founder E.D. Hirsch Jr.; Chester Finn, of the Fordham Foundation; and John Silber, the retired president of Boston University. Some of those people have been on record previously as opposing the 21st-century-skills push.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, as we've discussed in the pages of EdWeek, promotes the cultivation of a broad range of critical-thinking, creative, and analytical skills among students, including technological know-how, as well as "soft skills," in areas such as communication. Those skills are vital to succeeding on the job and in life, the organization argues, and schools should nurture them. Supporters of that approach say they are not overlooking the importance of hard-and-fast academic content, but critics of the skills movement have not been assuaged.

In its open letter, titled "A Challenge to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills," the letter-writers say the approach of the Partnership, or P21, "marginalizes knowledge and therefore will deny students the liberal education they need." They add that "skills can neither be taught nor applied effectively without prior knowledge of a wide array of subjects."

The letter accuses P21 of attempting to "teach skills apart from knowledge," and calls for the program to be "fundamentally revised." As it now stands, it is "undermining the quality of education in America."

While the AFT's Weingarten's name is on the letter, her objections are definitely not shared by the 3.2 million-member National Education Association. The NEA is a founding member of P21, the union's executive director, John Wilson, noted in an e-mail, when I asked him for comment. Wilson took a dim view of the letter, which he said mischaracterizes P21's agenda.

"This group continues to amaze me," he said of the letter-writers, "that they would pit core knowledge against 21st-century skills, when our students need both. ... I have witnessed first- hand teachers using 21st-century skills and new technology to enhance the teaching of core subjects. To relegate today’s students to rows of desks, a teacher at the front of the classroom espousing content, and a textbook with paper and pencil is to guarantee that our students will be left with the lowest skills and the lowest-paying jobs."

Ken Kay, the president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, had this response in an e-mail: "We have never advocated, in any context, the teaching of 21st century skills separate from content. It is clear that you can’t just teach students to think, you have to teach them to critically think, problem solve and innovate about something – knowledge is the base of learning."

Added Kay: "Why don’t we all agree on an agenda of improving curriculum, assessment and professional development to ensure students acquire deep content knowledge and at the same time develop the skills vital to success in today’s world?"

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Math and science teachers shaping federal education policy? It's happening through the Einstein fellowship program, which I wrote about this week.

The program allows K-12 educators in math- and science related fields to come to Washington, D.C., for one-year stints, where they work in Capitol Hill offices or in federal agencies. Most of them go back to the classroom. Some of them stay, like Steve Robinson, who worked as a fellow for former Sen. Barack Obama and now serves as a math and science adviser in his administration.

Photo of Einstein fellow Ed Potosnak, who works in Rep. Mike Honda's office, by Christopher Powers of EdWeek.

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When the title of the article is “Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule the School,” it’s safe to assume that the author is not buying the prevailing line about the United States’ shortcomings in those subjects, and their alleged consequences for society. Mark Slouka, in a piece in published in this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine, derides the continuous “ritual” of pointing out new crises in math and science, a campaign that he says is being pushed along by corporate America with uncritical assistance from politicians, colleges and universities, and the news media.

Slouka is not arguing that math and science are not important. His point is that business and political leaders have become so intent at revamping those subjects in the name of job creation, economic prosperity, national security and so on, that they ignore that vital role that the humanities play in encouraging students to think critically and function as active, intelligent members of a civic society. “The humanities, in short, are a superb delivery mechanism for what me might call democratic values,” Slouka said. “There is no better that I am aware of.”

About the current wave of interest in improving students’ math and science skills, he writes:

"Typically, the call to arms comes from the business community. We’re losing our competitive edge, sounds the cry. Singapore is pulling ahead. The president swings into action. He orders up a blue-chip commission of high-ranking business executives (the 2006 Commission on the Future of Higher Education, led by business executive Charles Miller, for example) to study the problem and come up with “real world” solutions.

Thus empowered, the commission crunches the numbers, notes the depths to which we’ve sunk, and emerges into the light to underscore the need for more accountability. To whom? Well, to business, naturally. To whom else would you account? And that’s it, more or less. Cue the curtain. The commission’s president answers all reasonable questions. Eventually, everyone goes home and gets with the program.”

But it’s a shortsighted point of view, Slouka argues:

“The case for the humanities is not hard to make, though it can be difficult—to such an extent have we been marginalized, so long have we acceded to that marginalization—not to sound either defensive or naive. The humanities, done right, are the crucible within which our evolving notions of what it means to be fully human are put to the test; they teach us, incrementally, endlessly, not what to do but how to be."

The humanities “complicate our vision, pull our most cherished notions out by the roots, flay our pieties,” he says. Grounding students in the humanities moreover, is “value—and cheap at the price,” Slouka adds. “This is utility of a higher order. Considering where the rising arcs of our ignorance and our deference lead, what could represent a better investment?”

Slouka is, of course, hardly the only observer to warn of the downside for U.S. schools focusing on core academic subjects without giving sufficient time to history, literature, social studies, and the arts. I recently reported on the work of some scholars who believe that the roots of innovation and creativity in math and science rise are made stronger by the cultivation of arts and music skill.

Slouka’s point is different: not that the humanities are important because they build a math and science workforce, but because they build the individual, and build a better democratic society. What do you make of his arguments?

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As the United States commemorates the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, teachers have an increasing number of resources available to help them to create lessons focused on the events of that day, and their implications for the country.

My reading of various materials put together by teachers and advocacy groups suggest that educators have more options available today than they did three or four years ago. Back then, as my colleague Kathleen Manzo reported, teachers were often left cobbling together lessons about 9-11 on their own. I profiled a teacher in a New Jersey school who had, in the wake of Sept. 11, crafted a vocational curriculum that was tied to public safety, emergency response, and national security.

The classroom resources that have floated across my computer screen in recent weeks include an interdisciplinary curriculum created by the Sept. 11 Education Trust, a nonprofit group representing survivors of the attacks and their families, and the Social Studies School Service, a commercial provider of education products.

The two groups created a multimedia curriculum that can be used as independent lessons or as a yearlong course of study, made up of seven curriculum units. The resources include 70 first-person interviews with survivors, victim’s families, and public officials. The curriculum also includes interview transcripts, a video timeline of the day, lesson plans, an interactive Web site, student handouts, and activities that focus on acts of public service and civic participation.

In an Associated Press story about the unveiling of the curriculum in New York schools, the executive director of the Sept. 11 Education Trust suggests that some of the images in the materials are difficult to watch. “We're not sugarcoating the event," he said. “"We've included images that are challenging

I would imagine that K-12 teachers face several questions in creating lessons based on the 9/11 attacks. An obvious one is how to choose age-appropriate lessons. Another is deciding how broad, or narrow, to make those lessons: How far should a teacher delve into the ideology of the attackers or expand the lesson into a broader discussion of U.S.-Middle East relations? An additional, very practical question comes to mind: Since the anniversary comes at the beginning of the school year, some teachers may think that their students don't have enough background on some of the national and international issues to discuss the attacks, and the U.S. response to them, with a sufficient level of depth.

For teachers who have led discussions of the 9/11 attacks in their classes, what was your approach? And what were the biggest challenges you faced in trying to stage a meaningful discussion?

Photo: Diane Massaroli of Staten Island, N.Y., holds a picture of her late husband, Michael Massaroli, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center, during a ceremony on Sept. 11 at ground zero to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York. Chris Hondros/AP

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While reporting on trends in civic education, I came across a couple video clips from this spring when retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," produced by Comedy Central.

On the show, she talks about her interest in helping Americans understand the judicial system better, so they won't make the mistake that some have in perceiving judges as "secular, godless humanists who are trying to tell us what to do."

She talks about the development of free interactive videos for middle schools students about the judicial system. The games, produced by Our Courts, were launched just this month.

The justice is quite funny in some of her blunt characterizations about what it's like to be a member of the highest court of the land, such as that "you have to learn to disagree agreeably," and that it's not wise to obsess over cases once a ruling has been made. "You do your best and live with it," she says.

She objects to Stewart's characterization of her as the "swing justice," and he congenially corrects himself and calls her the "most principled justice." She tells him that is "much better."

The justice shows a sense of humor as well when Stewart asks if she's done any "judging" since she retired from the court. Sure, she says, she can't help but judge her children and grandchildren sometimes.

I think the video clips could be useful for engaging students in a U.S. government class.

August 20 Update: I interviewed Justice O'Connor for my story about civic education as well, which is online at edweek.org here.

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I haven't forgotten how teachers flock to the giveaways during trade shows at education conferences. So I'm passing along this announcement that PBS is giving away 20 DVD sets of its series "We Shall Remain" on Native American history. I thought some of you might want to try your chances to get one of them.

The films are also streaming online here.

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Research shows that when information in a film doesn't match what's in a history text, students are more likely to remember the film version, according to my colleague Debbie Viadero over at Inside School Research.

Her post makes me glad that I'm a fan of documentaries about history, such as those directed by Ken Burns or Henry Louis Gates (yes, I watched his PBS series on Africa before he became famous for speaking out publicly about his arrest by Cambridge, Mass., police), and I'm not inclined to watch history films that come out of Hollywood.

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The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, which provides a national certification for teachers whom the organization considers to be exceptional, is seeking public comment on its revised standards for what accomplished teachers of history and social studies must know and be able to do. The comment period started today and ends August 9. Find the standards document here and the invitation to comment here.

The document reflects some changes since the national board published its first standards document for teachers of social studies and history in 1997, according to information from the national board's Web site. For example, in some cases, several standards have been collapsed into a single standard. In general, the new standards have less detail than the previous ones.

According to the new standards document, an accomplished history and social studies teacher knows his or her students as individuals and also as members of families and communities, recognizes the importance of student diversity, facilitates students' development as participants in civil public discourse, and is well grounded in content knowledge. The standards are intended for teachers of students ages 11 to 18 or older.

The document elaborates on each of these general standards. For instance, the document contains 14 pages of information spelling out what a teacher who is well grounded in content knowledge should know and be able to do. He or she should have in-depth knowledge of economics, U.S. history, world history, and geography, among other topics, according to the document.

Also this summer, the national board released revised standards for teachers of students who are English-language learners; the comment period for that document closed yesterday.

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Advocates struggled for years to get greater coverage of influential minority figures in the school curriculum. Their efforts are evident in schools across the country, where most K-12 students learn about the contributions of Sacajawea, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks.

But some panel members convened by the Texas state school board think schools have gone too far in placing historical figures of color next to the Founding Fathers in the curriculum and textbooks. Some critics of the voluntary national U.S. history standards voiced similar complaints about that document more than a decade ago.

The Dallas Morning News reports on some of the panelist's recommendations here, quoting one, evangelical minister Peter Marshall, as saying: "To have César Chávez listed next to Ben Franklin" – as in the current standards – "is ludicrous." Marshall also questioned whether Thurgood Marshall, the nation's first African-American to be appointed to the Supreme Court after a legal career in which he successfully fought against school desegregation, was a strong enough figure to be featured in school textbooks.

The state board, the News reports, asked six "experts" to review the state's current standards, adopted in 1998. Three of the panel members were appointed by conservative Republicans on the board, while the others were selected by the remaining board members, both Republicans and Democrats.

A committee of educators and community representatives are slated to write the state's new social studies standards, which are influential in the development of school textbooks for much of the nation. The new document, which will guide instruction in the state over the next decade, will replace the ones adopted by the board in 1998.

The Texas board had been embroiled in controversy over its science standards, largely because of language relating to evolution.

(Photo of Thurgood Marshall courtesy of The National Archives.)

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To get a high school diploma, students should have to pass the same test that is required for people to become U.S. citizens, the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute is saying. The nonprofit organization made the recommendation after finding in a study that only 3.5 percent of public school students in Arizona could pass the citizenship test.

High school students were given 10 of the 100 test questions from a bank of test items for the U.S. citizenship exam, as is the practice for candidates for citizenship. To pass, test takers needed to get six questions correct. Typically, about 92.4 percent of applicants for U.S. citizenship pass by getting six out of 10 questions right on the first try, the institute says.

While 3.5 percent of public school students passed the test, which included questions such as "Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?" and "Who was the first president of the United States?", twice that percentage of charter school students in Arizona passed the test. Private school students passed the test at about four times the rate that public school students did.

The folks at the Goldwater Institute are not the only people concerned about what they perceive as a lack of civics education in schools. The actor Richard Dreyfuss is creating a civics curriculum and former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, a Democrat from Florida, has written a book, America, the Owner's Manual: Making Government Work for You, urging high school and college students to get more involved in politics.

USA Today published an opinion piece this month that picked up on the Goldwater Institute's study, saying that the nation needs to find better ways to educate young people about history and civics. Blogger Joanne Jacobs also highlighted the lack of students' knowledge about civics by featuring the findings of the Goldwater survey.

I'm wondering if candidates for U.S. citizenship have a chance to study the test questions for the citizenship test beforehand. That might explain the difference in pass rates between them and high school students, if the students didn't study the questions beforehand.

When I took the written exam for my driver's license in the District of Columbia, I could read all of the questions from the test bank ahead of time in a test-preparation guide. I memorized them and aced the 15 test questions that were giving to me in an exam.

Readers, do you think that students should have to pass a civics exam to get a high school diploma?

Photo by Richard Drew/AP

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Workers from the 2010 U.S. Census are preparing to canvass neighborhoods and crunch numbers as part of the once-a-decade survey that gives us an official headcount of the nation’s population, not to mention that of cities, states, and other jurisdictions. It’s a process that determines how congressional districts are drawn and how billions of dollars of federal aid get allocated.

The Census Bureau, which orchestrates the count, is eager to promote public awareness of how it works. One way they’re doing it is through the creation of a series of lesson plans, student activities, and other online tools, available to teachers online. The “Census in Schools” site already has some features designed to help teachers explain the census and craft classroom activities around it, though many more are expected to be added in the months ahead. U.S. Census officials say their resources are aimed at not only introducing students to the survey itself, but also at encouraging educators to incorporate that data in social studies and history classes and independent research projects.

Some resources are already available online. On the teacher’s page, for instance, there are worksheets that ask students to use census tables to identify total populations and changes in population over time. There are “quick facts” students can get about the population and demographic breakdowns of their states and population growth or loss. For younger students, the site includes counting games and quizzes, based on census information. For teachers, there’s a guide on how to use the U.S. Census and interpret its data. The Census Bureau will be adding other resources in the months ahead, some of which will be developed by Scholastic, which alerted us to the site.

The site also includes a lot of information about the history of the census and why it matters. As with any process that determines congressional seats and billions of dollars in spending, of course, the U.S. Census provokes controversy. Recently, conservatives have accused the Obama administration of seeking to politicize the process by having the census director report to White House officials. Obama’s nominee, Robert Groves, has seen his confirmation held up by Republicans in the U.S. Senate, who fear he could use statistical methods that would result in population counts that are more favorable to Democrats. Could a teacher use these fights to help introduce students to the census, and explain why it’s important?

UPDATE: An official from Scholastic just told me that the Census Bureau will be sending a series "kits" of supplementary materials, including teaching guides, maps, and other resources to school districts around the country in August and September, the start of the school year. Spanish-language materials will also be available online.

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Because of what is missing from U.S. history textbooks, history teachers should ensure that their students understand their textbook's interpretation of events is only one possible perspective on what happened, concludes Michael H. Romanowski in a study of how those texts present the topics of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the war on terror.

Romanowski is an associate professor in the college of education at Qatar University in Doha, Qatar. He conducted a content analysis of nine U.S. history textbooks by major U.S. publishers, including Pearson/Prentice Hall and Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Most textbooks that Romanowski studied did not provide clear information that would enable students to understand the complexities of the attacks of 9/11, according to his analysis.

He found, for instance, that only two of the nine textbooks provided a comprehensive explanation of why 9/11 might have happened, which he writes, "encourages teachers to raise questions that enable students to grasp not only 9/11 but also how American values, lifestyles, and policies are viewed by those outside Western culture."

Likewise, Romanowski found that most of the textbooks avoided providing a space for students to critique the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. He writes that they simply stated "facts," or presented controversies as resolved.

He said that the key reason given for the invasion was that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, though none was found. Here's an excerpt from Romanowski's study:

For several textbooks, the 'answer' to the lack of WMDs was that Bush overcame these criticisms to be re-elected, implying that the issue had been resolved or must be irrelevant.

In the conclusion of his textbook study, Romanowski writes:

History textbooks are imperfect educational tools that are still the dominant sources used to teach American history. However, textbooks should not be the final word because they are not written to present the 'truth,' but rather to put forth a politically acceptable position in order to gain approval from government agencies.

So what's a history teacher to do?

Romanowski urges teachers to support students in critiquing their textbooks and exploring perspectives beyond that of the texts. Teachers can ask their students, for example, to answer this question: "Whose viewpoint is presented, whose omitted, and whose interests are served?" Teachers can have them explore reactions of various Americans to a historical event, such as the attacks of 9/11, including that of the U.S. president, a member of Congress, a relative of a victim, and an Arab-American. Lastly, Romanowski recommends, teachers can use writing assignments to develop students' critical thinking.

It seems to me that these recommendations could apply to any lesson that teachers give using textbooks as a resource.

I read this study, by the way, in the spring edition of the American Secondary Education journal, which I found this week while cleaning off my desk.

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A number of states require schools to teach all students about Native American tribes in their states, but few states support such requirements with a line item in their budgets. So teachers glean resources to teach about Native Americans wherever they can.

One possible resource for the classroom is a PBS series about Native Americans, "We Shall Remain," which is also available on DVD. The series starts Monday, April 13, and continues for five episodes. The titles are "After the Mayflower," "Tecumseh's Vision," "Trail of Tears," "Geronimo," and "Wounded Knee." The promotional text for the series calls it a "provocative multi-media project that establishes Native history as an essential part of American history."

That's the same goal that some states have stated is a reason for requiring students to learn about tribes in their state.

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When he's not jabbing President Obama for making public his NCAA tournament picks, Sen. Lamar Alexander is introducing legislation aimed at improving the teaching of U.S. history. Alexander, a former U.S. secretary of education, is sponsoring legislation that would sponsor 100 new summer academies for outstanding teachers and students of U.S. history. The academies would be "aligned with academies in the U.S. Park System," such as Independence Hall.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Robert Byrd and Sen. Edward Kennedy, would also require states to develop standards for testing using history, though history wouldn't be made part the AYP mix under No Child Left Behind. They also want to create a 10-state pilot project for history and civics on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, allowing for state-by-state comparisons. It's an issue that Alexander and Kennedy have been interested in for some time.

No offense to Alexander, but I'll confess that I watched "Barack-Etology" (as ESPN called it) with interest, as I'm sure lots of hoops fans did. I'll take March Madness tips wherever I can get them.

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It is difficult to figure why some education ventures attract impressive financial and political support, while others flounder despite their value to the field. For years, I've written about The Concord Review and the really amazing history- research papers it publishes from high school authors/scholars.

The review has won praise from renowned historians, lawmakers, and educators, yet has failed to ever draw sufficient funding. The range of topics is as impressive as the volume of work by high school students: In 77 issues, the 846 published papers have covered topics from Joan of Arc to women's suffrage, from surgery during the Civil War to the history of laser technology. (The papers average more than 7,000 words, and all have been vetted for accuracy and quality. Many of the students do these research papers for the experience and knowledge they gain, not for school credit.)

But here's the kicker: It operates on a shoestring, as Founder and Publisher Will Fitzhugh reminds me often. Fitzhugh, who has struggled for years to keep the operation afloat, challenges students to do rigorous scholarly work and to delve deeply into history. His success at inspiring great academic work is juxtaposed against his failure to get anyone with money to take notice.

Well, if the grown-ups in the world have failed to recognize and reward the review for its 22 years of contributions, the students themselves have not.

Fitzhugh has shared many of the letters he receives from students whose work has been published in The Concord Review over the years. Yesterday, he shared with me one of the most memorable of those letters, which arrived recently at his Sudbury, Mass., office.

Nicole Heise won one of the review's Emerson Prize awards for excellence this year. The senior at Ithaca High School in Upstate New York sent the check back, with this note:

"As you well know, for high school-aged scholars, a forum of this caliber and the incentives it creates for academic excellence are rare. I also know that keeping The Concord Review active requires resources. So, please allow me to put my Emerson award money to the best possible use I can imagine by donating it to The Concord Review so that another young scholar can experience the thrill of seeing his or her work published."

The prize was no pittance either. Each of the winners received $800, thanks to a $5,000 donation from Douglas B. Reeves, CEO of the Leadership and Learning Foundation in Salem, Mass. Reeves, and a couple dozen member schools, are all that help Fitzhugh continue publishing. Now the student-scholars themselves are starting to pool their pennies.

I keep wondering just what will it take for the review to get the kind of attention, and support, it deserves? Maybe some of the Wall Street executives can follow Heise's lead and put some of those huge "retention awards" they've received—some at taxpayer expense—into this worthy cause, or at least donate it back to the U.S. Treasury.

Here's a complete list of the winners of the 2009 Emerson Prize, some of whom are now studying at some of the nation's top universities:

2009 Paul Armstrong, of Richard Montgomery High School, in Rockville, Md. (Fall 2007 issue: the historical relationship between Poland and Lithuania)

2009 Pamela Ban, of Thomas Worthington High School, in Worthington, Ohio, (Summer 2008 issue: the stages of Chinese economic reform)

2009 Nicole Heise, of Ithaca High School in Ithaca, N.Y. (Winter 2007 issue: the Tu Quoque defense at Nuremberg and after)

2009 Benjamin Loffredo, of the Fieldston School in the Bronx, N.Y. (Winter 2007 issue; the Philippine War)

2009 Colin Sellers Harris, of Sidwell Friends School, in Washington, D.C. (Fall 2007 issue: the United Arab Republic)

2009 Elize S. Zevitz, of the Prairie School, in Racine, Wis.. (Spring 2008 issue: the Northern and Southern reactions to Uncle Tom's Cabin).

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Take a guess at which countries in the world are "not free." Among them are China, Iraq, Kazakhstan, and Sudan, according to the Map of Freedom that is part of a new Web site, Democracy Web. And which countries would you put in the column of "free?" The Map of Freedom says that Argentina, India, Mongolia, Ukraine, and South Africa are all free. Jordan and Ethiopia get a partly free ranking.

The site is sponsored by the Albert Shanker Institute and the Freedom House and is aimed at supporting teachers to educate students about democracy. It comes with a study guide. Whether a country is considered to be free, not free, or partly free is based on the Freedom of the World survey, which awards countries freedom points depending on the answers to questions about religious freedom, corruption, independence of the media, and other issues. But I notice that the description of the survey doesn't say who provides the answers.

I think an interesting exercise would be for students to conduct research about individual countries to see if what they learn about a country's civil and political rights seems to match its ranking in the Map of Freedom.

For example, I'm questioning if the "partly" free ranking for one of the African countries that I have some knowledge about is on the mark, given that I've met several people from that country in the Washington area who have told me they were tortured by the current government there. Can a country torture its own citizens and still be partly free? hmmmm

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A friend of mine who works at one of the District of Columbia's public libraries tells me that February is the most important month at her library because it's Black History Month.The library schedules special programs to feature African-Americans. So since I'm new to the curriculum beat here at Education Week, I decided to do a Web search to see just how big Black History Month is in schools.

Some schools have put together impressive collections of resources that can be used for lessons marking Black History Month. Here's a sampling:
—Lakewood City Schools, in Ohio, has links to Web sites about prominent African Americans.
—Chatham County Schools, in North Carolina, features the work of a poet, George Moses Horton, from Chatham County and provides a collection of links with resources.

A number of schools plan special activities or lessons to coincide with Black History Month.
—Potanico Hills Central School in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., is presenting a series of events to celebrate Black History Month, including a workshop by Guy Davis, a blues guitarist and storyteller.
—Sandusky High School started Black History Month by looking at the stories of Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barack Obama.

I also see, by scanning Education Week stories that mention Black History Month, that it's important to some members of school communities that not only do students learn about African-Americans' role in U.S. history during February, but that they're also exposed to the topic year round.

The fact that U.S. citizens have elected their first African-American president in Barack Obama gives everyone an opportunity to once again look at school curricula and ensure that students are well informed about African-Americans' contributions to the United States.

Posted by Mary Ann Zehr at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A year ago, Will Fitzhugh was wondering if the next issue of The Concord Review, the renowned journal he founded in 1988 to recognize high school students' outstanding history research papers, would be the last. On a tattered shoestring budget, Fitzhugh has just published the Summer 2008 edition, and with some support from schools and other fans in the private sector, he has hopes for four more issues over the next year.

But the former high school history teacher is proceeding mostly on a wing and a prayer, and a driving passion for promoting rigorous academic work for teenagers. Last year, the salary for the curmudgeonly 71-year-old was a measly $8,600. This for a scholar who has won widespread praise among the top education thinkers in the country for demanding, and rewarding, excellence and earnestness in the study of history. Thousands of high school students—mostly from private schools, but many from public schools, including diverse and challenged ones—have responded with work that has impressed some prominent historians and many college-admissions officers.

So how is it that such an undertaking is only scraping by, while other worthy programs, such as the National Writing Project and the Teaching American History Grants, manage to garner millions of dollars each year in federal and foundation support?

Right now, the Review is staying afloat on the commitment of Fitzhugh and some 20 secondary institutions that have ponied up $5,000 each to join a consortium that was created a year ago to cover the costs of publishing the journal. The National Writing Board, also founded by Fitzhugh, brings in some money from students who pay for an evaluation of their research papers that can be sent in with their college applications.

Why is it that some extraordinary efforts in education, which seem to have vision and the right end goal, struggle so?

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)