War on History Education

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How the New York Times Got it Wrong on AP African American Studies – Newsroom

This was posted on the College Board sire - then removed. Making it harder and harder for a concerned social studies educator to know what to think about what happened because it is difficult to see what happened

How the New York Times Got it Wrong on AP African American Studies – Newsroom

Judd Legum on Twitter: "UPDATE: On February 1, the @CollegeBoard issued a press release claiming it had IRONCLAD PROOF that revisions to the AP African American Studies course were not influenced by Florida. THAT PRESS RELEASE HAS NOW BEEN DELETED FROM IT

Textbook Examination Impact Statement - University of Wyoming. Libraries Records

Typed report of the findings on the subversive and un-American textbook examination for the University of Wyoming in 1948

Textbook Examination Impact Statement - University of Wyoming. Libraries Records

LISTEN Carefully to his Words. I’ve never previously recommended on my… | by Wesley Fryer | Apr, 2023 | Medium

The connection between the war on history and education is clear in the language of the right. This article is worth reading. Teachers and educators keeping their focus on only the minutia of the attack on their disciplines, with vouchers, abolished tenure and social studies standards should know the forces driving all of these intiatives

LISTEN Carefully to his Words. I’ve never previously recommended on my… | by Wesley Fryer | Apr, 2023 | Medium

Florida’s State Academic Standards –Social Studies, 2023

Like the recent indictment's of the former president, United Nations climate change reports and other significant developments being argued about, it's always best to start with the document first, and the coverage 2nd. Here are the Florida standards at the center of the argument

Florida’s State Academic Standards –Social Studies, 2023

West Virginia University Slashes Its Budget, Plans to Drop Languages - The New York Times

The state’s flagship school will no longer teach world languages or creative writing — a sign, its president says, of the future at many public universities.. These statistics and perspectives on the decline of humanities education

As students flee the humanities — interest in <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_325.50.asp" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">English</a> and world languages is declining nationally — how much money should universities continue to put into them? Is it time to make tough choices about what students really need in order to be educated?

We simply have lost the support of the American public,” said E. Gordon Gee, the president of West Virginia University.

Penn State, for instance, faces a <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.psu.edu/news/administration/story/board-approves-tuition-operating-budgets-through-2024-25/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">$63 million</a> deficit this year, despite a hiring freeze and other savings. Rutgers University in New Jersey has been slashing budgets and raising tuition to help close a $77 million deficit.

Over the last decade, the university has invested in projects like new buildings for agriculture, engineering, student health, student housing and recreation, conferences and labs, and it has renovated its athletic facilities

Nationally, public colleges and universities have doubled their reliance on tuition since 1980, but in West Virginia, the figure has nearly tripled, according to the analysis. More than half — 56 percent — of total revenue for the state’s public colleges and universities now comes from tuition; in 1980, the figure was 19 percent. If West Virginia lawmakers had maintained education funding at the level of a decade ago, most of the current deficit would be erased, the report said.

West Virginia University Slashes Its Budget, Plans to Drop Languages - The New York Times

A Profession, If You Can Keep It

Remarks originally made at the 2023 meeting of the American Historical Association in Philadelphia, explaining the existential crisis of academia

Out of 1799 historians who received a PhD in the US between 2019 and 2020, 175 have full-time faculty positions. <a href="#easy-footnote-bottom-1-405738" data-hasqtip="0" oldtitle="Steven Mintz, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/what-should-we-do-about-undergrads-who-want-pursue-humanities-doctorate">&#8220;What Should We Do About Undergrads Who Want to Pursue a Humanities Doctorate?&#8221;</a> Inside Higher Ed, December 15, 2022. Accessed January 5, 2023." title="" aria-describedby="qtip-0">1</a>

And it’s about teaching, which is what every normal person in the world thinks is our main job, and which the field as a whole does not prioritize, train for, reward, or even really understand.

Erin Bartram is the School Programs Coordinator at The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, CT. She earned a PhD in 2015 from the University of Connecticut, where she studied 19th century United States history with a focus on women, religion, and ideas.

A Profession, If You Can Keep It

History Here and Now: The Issue of Presentism and Relevance

This can be used in conversations with parents and the community - the classroom is the safer place to explore the past than the firefights one finds online

The history classroom can, and should be, a place to learn context but also a safe place where people can discuss the issues at hand. This can be a far-cry from the debates raging on Facebook, X or other platforms.

Scholars argue that popular historians write simple narratives to reach the widest audience while academic historians are critiqued for writing narrow and dense prose. However, the internet, especially web 2.0 and social media, has blurred these lines.

Among academic historians, the conventional approach to scholarship is driven by historiography and archives. What does this mean? When an historian sits down to decide upon a new research topic, the historian asks questions. Historiography is the inside-baseball term for the body of literature around a given topic and the writing on the hows and whys of practicing history – how one should evaluate evidence, form an argument, and understand the philosophy of historical inquiry.

A survey of where Americans get historical information found that 62 percent get it from TV news with 55 percent using newspapers and magazines for historical knowledge. Nonfiction history books came in much lower on the list at 32 percent but above social media at 26 percent. College courses came in below video games and DNA tests, with 8 percent of the public citing courses as a source of historical knowledge.

History Here and Now: The Issue of Presentism and Relevance