War on History Education

When courses, especially those that were created and supported by some of the United States’ most esteemed scholars and organizations, appear to have been rejected without a transparent process, all educators and community members should be concerned and have the right to request more information on the process used.

NCSS remains committed to monitoring the political landscape of teaching social studies. We reserve the right to issue additional statements in the future regarding the AP African American Studies course if we believe it is necessary to do so.

As<span class="css-8l6xbc evw5hdy0"> </span>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.

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

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 &amp; 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.

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.