June Atkinson, the state superintendent of public instruction, told Senate leader Marc Basnight that students will get more than one shot of U.S. history while they're in high school.
Responding to a letter from Basnight objecting to a proposal to have the 11th grade survey course start with the post-Reconstruction years, Atkinson said students would study early U.S. history in 10th grade, Lynn Bonner reports.
The Civics and Economics course proposed for 10th graders includes study of the U.S. Constitution and an analysis of the foundation of democratic government in the United States.
"I agree 100 percent with you that no student should graduate without a thorough understanding and appreciation of the Founding Fathers' work, the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, etc," Atkinson wrote. "We are also committed to honoring state statutes that require these pieces of U.S. history to be taught at the high school level."
Comments
Documents but no history
February 15, 2010 - 6:34pm — posterchildWhile the superintendent is technically right please do not miss the point --- ONLY the documents and "the Founding Fathers' work" is included in the new Civics and Economics standards. Under the current C&E standards students study the development of the English colonies beginning with the Lost Colony and continuing up and through the creation of the Constitution. In other words, they learn about Jamestown, the development of slavery, Pilgrims and Puritans, mercantilism, the conflicts with the British over trade and sovereignty, the Revolutionary War, etc. -- all topics that will now be packed into the unwieldy 7th grade course "State, Nation and World, 1600s-1970s." Three years later they will pick up with the Declaration and the Constitution without any historical context at all. Nice going there, DPI.