Teaching American History Grants Program

Ira Berlin

In May, the federal government released the history section of
the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Touted as “the Nation’s Report Card,” NAEP claims to measure the academic proficiency of primary and secondary school students. As usual, the results were not the sort gladly brought home to mother. (See sidebar.) The NAEP report runs into the hundreds of pages, but sadly it only confirms other recent appraisals of the state of historical literacy. They reveal—among other things—that the graduates of some of our most selective universities confuse the American commander at Yorktown with Ulysses S. Grant, believe the United States was aligned with Germany and Japan during World War II, and cannot identify the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. While the recent NAEP results find some areas of improvement, the long-term trends are clear.

The implications of this lack of historical knowledge are so frightening, in fact, that Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, a practicing historian as well as a man with a deep interest in his nation’s past, introduced legislation in 2001 authorizing the expenditure of fifty million dollars for history education. Since then, the Teaching American History Grants Program initiative has been refunded to the tune of one hundred million dollars for the current fiscal year, and the program received authorization for another five years, indicating there is a good chance of the initiative continuing. Needless to say, American historians owe a large debt of gratitude to Senator Byrd.

Of course others share the Senator’s concern. The National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation—along with more than a dozen other governmental agencies and private foundations—have been generous with their support of projects to improve the quality of history teaching. Numerous universities, colleges, schools at all levels, as well as the national and state departments of education and school districts, are in the process of rethinking the teaching of history and the teaching of teachers of history. The National Council on History Education, the National Center for History in the Schools, the National History Project—like the OAH and AHA—are mobilizing to address what is generally recognized as a deep crisis in history education. The results of these efforts are substantial. They range from the tens of thousands of students who participate in National History Day to thoughtful reconsideration of curricula and education policy, so that the pedagogical world is abuzz with conferences, seminars, and position papers on the teaching of history. The OAH, for instance, has joined with the AHA and NCSS in organizing “Innovations in Collaboration: A School-University Model To Enhance History Teaching, K-16,” a conference to be held in Alexandria, Virginia, in June 2003.

There is much to be done in strengthening the school-to-college connection in history education, creating a K-16 university professional community, and making history central to the curriculum. But it goes without saying that the “Byrd grants”—if not already—will most certainly be the single largest public investment in history education. If expenditures continue at the present rate, one can easily imagine that by the end of the decade close to a billion dollars will be spent on history education. While this is far short of the money needed to float an aircraft carrier, it speaks to an extraordinary opportunity. Or to put the case in the negative, if at the end of the decade there is not a significant difference in the historical literacy of the American people it will be a failure of enormous proportions. For this reason, as well as many others, the Teaching American History Grants Program should be of concern to all members of the Organization of American Historians.

Many of you are already deeply concerned and deeply involved. OAH members are part of the teams that have received the first grants awarded by the Department of Education. I have reviewed the online summaries of these projects. They are innovative and exciting, infused with the revolutionary changes that have transformed historical understanding in the past several decades. They speak to new literature, technologies, and approaches to the study of history. They also suggests new forms of cooperation between schools, museums, parks, and the academy. For the most part, however, they speak to classroom pedagogy. Since this is where most history is taught, there can be no quarrel with that emphasis. But it is also evident from recent studies that important structural changes are necessary within and between the schools and the academy if we, as a people, are going to have a better understanding of our past and if the opportunity presented by Senator Byrd is not to go wanting.

For more information on the Teaching American History Grants program, please visit: <http://www.oah.org/teaching/>