Good Sense on Teaching History : Review panels validate standards that deserve widespread adoption

The first thing to remember amid the rekindled controversy over proposed national standards for U.S. history is that there will never be agreement about exactly whose history our children should learn. The second is that these voluntary standards are a major improvement over what for too long has passed for history education in many elementary and secondary schools.

While it is obvious that U.S. history is the history of all Americans, it is profoundly difficult to find agreement on which mix of events, historical figures, political and economic trends best represents our collective past. For decades, the history that schoolchildren learned greatly underpresented the contributions and experiences of women and minorities. Articulating a new set of expectations about what children should know about American history--defining a more accurate mix of people and events--has been the mission of the National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA.

The center developed these standards for grades 5 through 12 with help from historians, teachers and school administrators. They are one part of a larger effort to set high academic goals in every major subject.

The history standards comprise about 70 broad statements of what all American children should learn about U.S. history. One standard, for example, expects that students will understand the causes of the American Revolution, the ideas and interests involved in forging the revolutionary movement and the reasons for American victory.

Following their publication last year, critics charged that the standards went too far in correcting past omissions. They confused history with political correctness, opponents said, overemphasizing the role of such Americans as Harriet Tubman at the expense of such figures as Paul Revere.

Now two independent review panels have largely validated the views of those who endorse these standards. Composed of historians, civic leaders and educators, these panels concluded that the standards should be retained. They also concluded that some of the more than 2,500 classroom activities that teachers have developed for the standards may need work to eliminate bias. But overall, we hope that the panel reports push these worthy--and ambitious--standards toward widespread adoption.