Are American high school granduates deficient in their understanding of American History? Yes!
Recent results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) U.S. History exams reveal that when eighteen-year-olds leave high school, 88% of them score below a proficiency level, meaning their U.S. history knowledge is below grade level. Fifty-five percent of 12th graders are below even a basic, partial mastery of the content.
The little content that history and social studies teachers do receive tends to be colored by a liberal worldview. Howard Zinn’s infamous A People’s History of the United States, first published in 1980, remains the nation’s best-selling survey textbook, selling about 125,000 copies each year.[6] Zinn, a self-proclaimed radical, has heavily influenced many of today’s textbooks.[7] His work is infused with a clear theme: America is a corrupt nation founded upon the lie of equal opportunity and designed in reality to empower the wealthy. On numerous occasions, Zinn has stated that the world would be a much better place if the United States had never existed.[8] Following Zinn, radical activists such as former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers have promoted educational reforms aimed at indoctrinating children in an effort to overthrow the existing social order in favor of a system built on a Left-wing version of “social justice.”
I saw Zinn's book on the desk of the teacher who teaches history to both of my sons. I confronted her about it, and she replied that she just uses it to promote empathy for Native Americans. Both my sons really like this teacher, something I cannot say for many of their other teachers.
The point for the conservatives is that teachers and educational boards would likely have assigned the objectionable assignments and texts noted above even if the Common Core never existed. For conservatives, the fact that the standards promote the study of primary sources and require students to provide reasoned arguments, including examples from those sources, should be seen as positives. Again, one needs to bear in mind that the Common Core is skill-based, not content-based; teachers can choose whatever texts they wish in their effort to teach their students literacy skills.
It is not the intention of the present authors to defend the Common Core in toto. It is our intent, however, to demonstrate to conservatives that the Common Core Standards actually provide them with an opportunity to accomplish their ends too. For better or worse, for the foreseeable future it appears that the vast majority of states will soon tie the evaluation of their teachers to student performance on achievement tests based on the new standards. Although the Common Core Standards are likely to have a significant impact on education in America, it is important to remember that educational standards and reforms come and go. Whether or not a state has adopted the Common Core, there is an opportunity for anyone, including those on the political Right, to influence the content that is taught when it comes to literature and history.
The Common Core Standards are far from perfect or complete and certainly do not constitute the long-sought-after “solution” to the problems in American education. In regard to the English Language Arts with its history and social studies exemplars, they at least emphasize critical reading skills and an opportunity for conservatives to have a say in which exemplar texts are used in classrooms. Conservative critics should keep in mind that both teacher unions and many individual teachers also oppose the Common Core, largely because they see it as impinging on academic freedom and simply because teachers generally resent being told what to do in their classrooms. Conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru is right in characterizing the fight over the Common Core as “a dismal cycle of elite disdain and populist outrage, each side feeding the other’s worst impulses.” The debate has thus become clouded and slogans have replaced reason, especially on the Right. It is time for conservatives either to oppose the Common Core on legitimate grounds or to drop their opposition and find ways to make the new standards serve their ends.
No comments:
Post a Comment