March 5, 2011
“World War II was the mightiest struggle
humankind has ever seen. It killed more people, cost more money, damaged more
property, affected more people, and caused more far-reaching changes in nearly
every country than any other war in history. The number of people killed, wounded,
or missing between September 1939 and September 1945 can never be calculated,
but it is estimated that more than 55 million people perished.”
Do you find it odd that World War II is
not mentioned in the Colorado history standards? Not once in 100 pages. At one point, they get close … but then skip
over those six horrific years:
“Prepared
graduates” will “investigate causes and effects of significant events in United
States history. Topics to include but
not limited to WWI, Great Depression, Cold War…”
Something missing? Go to our standards and do a search for World
War II. Search for Roosevelt, Churchill,
Hitler. Try Pearl Harbor, D-Day,
Hiroshima, A-Bomb. Nothing. Zip.
**
To
get an F in college—an Art History course--was embarrassing. Maybe I shouldn’t have slept through the
final exam. No one likes to get an F,
but we should take it to heart and see how we can improve. That’s certainly what we will be saying to
schools if Colorado starts giving them letter grades—as many states are doing. That is certainly what we would ask of a
teacher—or a student—given such a low evaluation. Unless we want to shoot the messenger,
failing grades should force a little soul-searching.
This past month the Thomas B. Fordham
Institute released its first report on the quality of state history standards
since 2003. Eight years ago our
standards were given a D. Colorado’s grade today? F. Our
scores on Content and Rigor – 0/7.
On Clarity and Specificity: 0/3.
(The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011, by
Sheldon
M. Stern, Jeremy A. Stern)
Table-1 • 2011 Grades for U.S. History
Standards - Ranked from Best to Worst
|
STATE
|
2011 GRADE
|
|
South
Carolina
|
A
|
|
Alabama
|
A-
|
|
California
|
A-
|
|
Indians
|
A-
|
|
Massachusetts
|
A-
|
|
New York
|
A-
|
|
Oklahoma
|
B+
|
|
Georgia
|
B
|
|
Michigan
|
B
|
|
12 states
|
C
|
|
10 states
|
D
|
|
18 states,
including COLORADO
|
F
|
So
I ask: What are we doing about it? Can’t
we do better?
As Table 1 shows, we were hardly alone
with our low score.
Fordham’s “Key findings include:
A
majority of states’ standards are mediocre-to-awful. The average grade across
all states is barely a D. In twenty-eight jurisdictions—a majority of
states—the history standards earn Ds or below. Eighteen earn Fs. Just one state—South Carolina—has standards
strong enough to earn a straight A. … just ten states—or about one in five—get
honors marks. (These states provide) …several national models … that lagging
states could and should emulate going forward.
We learned of the report in The Washington Post, Education Week, and
The Economist, but not a word in The Denver Post or Education News Colorado. It
deserves our attention. I have supported
the standards effort since it began in the early 1990’s. The F does embarrass me, as I suspect it does
many Coloradans who believe the standards we commit to reveals our expectations
for public schools. Furthermore, I
taught some history when, in my English classes, students read speeches by
Churchill and Roosevelt, W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X
(again, not one of whom is named in
Colorado’s history standards).
What’s wrong with our standards?
First, The Economist’s summary. It
points out that while President Obama and many others remind us how critical it
is that we improve the teaching of math, science, and technology, a 2009 test
found an even smaller percentage of high school seniors—47%—scored at the basic
level in history than in math.
“One problem, (this) new report argues, is
that states have pathetic standards for what history should be taught. Good
standards do not ensure that students will learn history. But they are a
crucial guide…many states emphasize abstract concepts rather than history
itself.”
That captures the essence of Fordham’s
two-page criticism of our standards (found at http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2011/20110216_SOSHS/SOSS_USHistory_Colorado.pdf).
A
few bullets from the report (quoted with permission from Fordham):
Overview - The
2009 Colorado social studies standards, we are told, were “designed for
clarity, rigor, and coherence,” aiming for “fewer, higher and clearer
standards.” The result is meant to be “a vision” of “what all students should
know and be able to do at each grade level through eighth, and then through
high school.” Unfortunately, thematic abstractions dominate the standards—to
the near-total exclusion of historical or chronological coherence, obscuring
what limited content there is in a confused tangle of categories,
subcategories, and jargon.
Goals and Organization
- Each
such expectation consists of a thematic heading—labeled “concepts and skills
students master”—laying out broad conceptual themes to be covered. For example,
one eighth-grade history grade-level expectation directs students to “formulate
appropriate hypotheses about United States history based on a variety of
historical sources and perspectives.
The state then provides a series of
“evidence outcomes” for each concepts and skills heading. These are thematic
summary statements of knowledge that students must master as well as “21st
century skills and readiness competencies.” …This jargon-laden snarl of nested
categories severely fragments any historical content, making chronological
presentation impossible. With content summaries so broad, general, and
disorganized, even the basic scope of each year’s course can be difficult to
discern.
Evaluation - According
to the state’s social studies standards, Colorado students are expected to
graduate with the skills to understand “how people view, construct and
interpret history” and grasp “key historical periods and patterns of change
over time within and across nations and cultures.” Unfortunately, concepts and skills must be
matched with content and substance if genuine historical clarity and rigor are
to be achieved. Yet Colorado seems much more interested in abstract goals than
specific substance….
Content
and Rigor Conclusion - Colorado’s
K–12 Academic Standards in social studies provide virtually no subject-specific
content in U.S. history. There is hardly anything in U.S. history that teachers
are specifically required to know or to teach at any particular grade level. A
complete lack of specific content means that substantive rigor cannot be
identified, measured, or evaluated. Even a few vague and brief references to
specific eras or concepts cannot raise the score above a zero out of seven for
Content and Rigor.
From Education
Week – UNC professor responds
As Education
Week’s article suggested, some will fault the messenger and dismiss the
message:
But officials in some of those
low-scoring states and other critics of the Fordham study said the poor ratings
owe largely to differences between the institute and various states on how
American history is best taught, what it should cover, and how detailed the
curricula should be in elementary, middle, and high school.
“The authors seem to want a prescribed
and detailed U.S. history curriculum for every state, and this is
constitutionally impossible in Colorado,” said Fritz Fischer, a professor of
history at the University of Northern Colorado and the chairman of the National
Council for History Education. Under the state’s constitution, Colorado
officials are prohibited from dictating curricula to school districts, he said.
“The biggest problem reflected in the study is that it ignores historical
thinking and understanding in favor of weakly defined ‘specific substance,’ ”
said Mr. Fischer, who has also advised Colorado on developing social studies
standards. “The authors appear to be attracted to lists of names, dates, and
events at the expense of standards that require students to develop an in-depth
understanding of historical concepts and ideas.”
However, Fordham’s president said its
analysis is about making sure students have a firm grasp of historical facts
before developing historical concepts and ideas. “You have to get the bricks before you can
get the mortar,” Chester E. Finn, Jr. said.
(“Report Gives a
Majority of States Poor Grades on History Standards,
by Michelle D. Anderson, Education Week, Feb. 16, 2011, online)
Jo O’Brien, Assistant Commissioner for Standards and
Assessment at the Colorado Department of Education, emailed me: “It is not
surprising that the Fordham reviewers rated Colorado’s history standards as
they did given their review criteria is fundamentally different than the
framework used to develop all of Colorado’s Academic Standards. States
rated high by Fordham tend to have history standards and addendum documents
that are more curricular in nature. In Colorado, curriculum design occurs
at the district level, not at the state level.”
She added: “The need for specific and rigorous curriculum is essential.
Colorado is not in a legal position to offer curriculum. That will always
put us crossways with such a review.”
A recommendation for elementary and middle schools
Perhaps the state cannot do more. I would note, though, that we recently
adopted the Common Core standards in English, and here we at least see a list
of texts—specific novels, stories, poems, and
speeches--that would help schools and teachers know what literature
would meet expectations at certain grade levels*. I am sure many teachers across the state pay
less attention to the amorphous state standards and feel their more specific district
standards are a better guide. (This English teacher felt that way about the
Douglas County language arts standards, as compared to the state
standards).
Still,
I believe many schools and teachers would be glad to have a list of essential names,
places, events, and critical ideas to address (which is hardly “dictating
curricula,” true?) It is challenging enough
to prepare the best units and lesson plans; I certainly wanted some choices as
a teacher, but I was sure there were folks brighter than me who could come up
with the big picture, the essentials of what to teach.
For K-8 history and geography, I think
it has been done. The Core Knowledge Sequence— now guiding the
teaching of history in close to 100 Colorado public and private schools—offers
the specificity that gives teachers everything our state standards do not. I speak as one who spent most of the past decade
teaching English in three schools committed to, or moving towards, Core
Knowledge as its guide. Language arts
teachers benefit greatly knowing what our students are being taught by our
colleagues who teach history. The
curriculum outline is written in a way that we often piggyback on each other’s
work.
Let’s take, say, World War II. Pages 5 and 6 here give you Core’s guide for
that unit in history. Those who see it
as “merely a list to memorize” that demands insufficient “critical thinking
skills” show little appreciation for the powerful units created by my history
colleagues Mark, Diana, and Miles, or for the heartfelt discussions as our students
wrestled with these events.
Language Arts Class: World War II–speeches by
Churchill (1940) and Roosevelt (1941), and The
Diary of a Young Girl (1942-1944), by Anne Frank
Colorado standards and the Core
curriculum expect students to read essays and speeches as well as fiction. I was glad to use time in English class when
students could read Winston Churchill’s “Blood Sweat and Tears” and “Their
Finest Hour”; I did so as my Social Studies colleague hit 1940. As history
class entered 1941 and America’s involvement, my class read Franklin
Roosevelt’s “The Four Freedoms” and “Declaration of War Against Japan.” Our close look at these texts gave the
students new insight into how these two men spoke for—and led— their
nations. (NOTE: Two of those speeches
are referenced in the Common Core English standards.*)
Then we began The Diary of a Young Girl. (Note—this
is recommended for seventh graders in the Common Core Curriculum Map, designed
to align with the Common Core standards—see http://commoncore.org/maps/index.php/maps/grade_7_unit_3/#. But if history class isn’t simultaneously teaching
WWII, how will students have the needed context to appreciate Anne Frank’s situation?) Her story moves from the summer of 1942 to
the bombings of Amsterdam to D-Day and into August 1944—with the Frank family,
like millions, waiting for the Allies to arrive. Their fears—and their desperate hope for
liberation from Nazi rule—came to life in the words of thoughtful teenager
growing up, struggling with relationships, with the war and prejudice, and
hoping to discover who she is.
From the Core Knowledge Sequence- curriculum guide for 7th Grade
History/Geography*
NOTE:
This is one page from the four-plus pages in the CK 7th grade
curriculum guide – see page 180-185 of the Core Knowledge Sequence – Content
and Skills Guidelines for K-8:
V. World War II
A. THE RISE OF TOTALITARIANISM IN EUROPE
• Italy
Mussolini establishes fascism
Attack on Ethiopia
• Germany
Weimar Republic, economic
repercussions of WWI
Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazi
totalitarianism: cult of the Führer
(“leader”), Mein Kampf
Nazism and the ideology of
fascism, in contrast to communism and democracy
Racial doctrines of the Nazis:
anti-Semitism, the concept of Lebensraum (literally, “living space”) for the
“master race,” Kristallnacht
The Third Reich before the War:
Gestapo, mass propaganda, book burning
• The Soviet Union
Communist totalitarianism: Josef
Stalin, “Socialism in one country”
Collectivization of agriculture
Five-year plans for
industrialization
The Great Purge
• Spanish Civil War
-- Franco, International Brigade, Guernica
B. WORLD WAR II IN EUROPE AND AT HOME, 1939–45
• Hitler defies Versailles Treaty: reoccupation of
Rhineland, Anschluss, annexation of Austria
• Appeasement: Munich Agreement, “peace in our time”
• Soviet-Nazi Nonaggression Pact
• Blitzkrieg: invasion of Poland, fall of France, Dunkirk
• Battle of Britain: Winston Churchill, “nothing to offer
but blood, toil, tears, and sweat”
• The Home Front in America
American Lend-Lease supplies,
Atlantic Charter
America First movement
U.S. mobilization for war:
desegregation of defense industries, “Rosie the Riveter,” war bonds
America races Germany to develop
the atomic bomb: the Manhattan Project
• Hitler invades Soviet Union: battles of Leningrad and
Stalingrad
• The Holocaust: “Final Solution,” concentration camps
(Dachau, Auschwitz)
• North Africa Campaign: El Alamein
• D-Day: Allied invasion of Normandy, General Dwight
Eisenhower
• Battle of the Bulge, bombing of Dresden
• Yalta Conference
• Surrender of Germany, Soviet Army takes Berlin
*Reprinted with permission
from the Core Knowledge Foundation, from The Core Knowledge
Sequence: Content and Skill Guidelines for Grades PreK - 8, © 2010 by the Core
Knowledge Foundation. (Note: updated in 2010.)
Not to be copied or reproduced without permission from the Core Knowledge
Foundation, 801 E. High Street, Charlottesville, VA 22902 www.coreknowledge.org <http://www.coreknowledge.org/.
C. WORLD WAR II IN THE PACIFIC, AND THE END OF THE WAR
• Historical background: Japan’s rise to power
Geography of Japan (review all
topics from grade 5) -- Sea of Japan and Korea Strait
High population density, very limited farmland, heavy reliance on
imported raw materials, food
Japanese imperialism: occupation
of Korea, invasion of Manchuria, Rape of Nanking
Japanese-Soviet neutrality
treaty
• Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941: “A day that will live in
infamy.”
• Internment of Japanese-Americans
• Fall of the Philippines: Bataan Death March, General
Douglas MacArthur, “I shall return.”
• Surrender of Japan -- Atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, the Enola Gay
U.S. dictates pacifist
constitution for Japan, Emperor Hirohito
• Potsdam Conference, Nuremberg war crimes trials
• Creation of United Nations: Security Council, Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
**
I use the World War II material merely as
one example to contrast Colorado’s standards with Core Knowledge. Similar specific content enables 8th
grade English and history teachers to collaborate as they read: The Good Earth while studying China; Animal Farm after studying the Russian
Revolution and totalitarianism; and Du Bois, Hurston, Angelou, King, and
Malcolm X during their study of the Civil Rights movement. (King’s “Letter from
Birmingham City Jail” is also referenced in the Common Core standards for
grades 9-10.)
An F seems right when our standards fail
to mention what is perhaps the most critical event of the 20th
century. An outcome that was no sure
thing. So much blood shed. Huge stakes.
Never again, we tell ourselves. But
hard to learn from this cataclysm—if we fail to teach it.
What should guide us? Those who developed our history standards
speak of the Massachusetts Curriculum Framework as one resource. There you will find clear expectations on
teaching WW II—see pages 60 and 76— http://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/hss/final.pdf. This part didn’t make it west. Closer to home, we have 100 schools that find
the Core Knowledge Sequence a good
place to start. Perhaps more K-8
teachers will follow. The bound copy is
$35, but at www.coreknowledge.org/downloads
it is free. I hope you’ll take a look.
