Debate Greets Standards for History Classes

The first national standards proposed for teaching history in America’s public schools will be unveiled today amid complaints from conservatives that political correctness prompted the slighting of familiar historical figures such as Ulysses S. Grant and the Wright brothers.

Authors of the proposed standards, which are meant to invigorate history lessons as part of a bipartisan drive to improve American schools, said the critics have misintepreted their work, which has received broad support from education, business and other leaders who helped decide what to include.

The document, a 271-page curriculum guide to be released by the UCLA-based National Center for History in the Schools, lays out the breadth and depth of history that American students should master in grades five through 12. It presents history in 10 major eras, from pre-colonial societies to post-1968 contemporary America, and urges greater awareness of the roles of minorities, women and immigrants.

An educated person, the standards recommend, should develop a “comprehensive understanding of the world, and of the many cultures and ways of life different from their own.”

Before they become official, the standards require approval from the yet-to-be-appointed National Education Standards and Improvement Council. Like national standards announced in math, arts and geography, the history guidelines are voluntary.

But the notion of even voluntary national standards has met resistance, in part because of the long history of leaving most key public education decisions in the hands of states and local school boards.

The proposed history standards came under attack recently as drafts were circulated widely. In an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal last week, Lynne V. Cheney, chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities during the Reagan and Bush administrations, denounced the document as “politically correct.”

She said it emphasized minority cultures and contributions at the expense of such white men as Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein. Harriet Tubman, the African American who helped rescue slaves through the Underground Railroad, is mentioned six times in the document while her Civil War-era contemporary Grant is mentioned once and Robert E. Lee not at all, Cheney said.

Cheney’s piece, which has rallied conservative criticism of the standards, also argued that the guidelines put too much emphasis on negative episodes, such McCarthyism and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, while underplaying the historical significance of the Constitution.

Gary B. Nash, co-director of the UCLA center, said the critics are wrong about the contents. There was no attempt to include the name of every important historical figure in the guidelines, he said, and omission from the standards does not mean that Lee should be dropped from history books. Names were only used in examples of what students should learn, he said.

“This is not a textbook but a curriculum guide,” said Nash, adding that decisions about whom to feature in history lessons will still be made by textbook publishers and local educators.

The proposed standards represent a “broad consensus” among educators and historians on de-emphasizing memorization of names, dates and places, and getting students to think about the significance of events and be able to apply the lessons of history to their lives, Nash said.

The standards recommend, for example, that students be able to “demonstrate understanding of the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence.” Among other achievements, students in fifth and sixth grade should be able to define such terms as “all men,” “created equal,” “just powers” and “consent of the governed.”

Ninth- through 12th-graders should be able to compare the principles of the Declaration of Independence with those of philosopher John Locke and to compare the American document with the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

In a rebuttal to the Cheney article, Nash said the Constitution is given thorough treatment in the standards and should be an integral part of every American’s grasp of history. “The business of the Constitution being slighted is truly nonsense,” Nash said.

Work on the national standards began during the Bush Administration and was expanded upon by the Clinton Administration as part of its “Goals 2000” program to improve schools and help the nation compete in a global economy. Proposed standards for teaching history in kindergarten through fourth grade are scheduled to be released Nov. 4.