Improving History Education

In recent years, pollsters and education studies have reported that Americans, particularly high school and college students, do not know their United States history, let alone the history of the world around them.  Multiple surveys and studies have revealed that individuals can not place a key historical event within the appropriate century.  Nor can they explain the significance of a particular person and many are unable to define the meaning of one of the nation’s founding documents.   In response, U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee), a major advocate for improved history education, has noted that “American history is our children’s worst subject.”  Similarly, historian Theodore Rabb of Princeton University drafted a statement, signed by numerous educators and professional historians, claiming a “crisis in history” and calling for an elevation of history to a more visible part of the school curriculum.

Given the current state of history education, many experts claim that the problem can be attributed to the fact that students and teachers do not have access to books and curriculum materials that put history into context or that make history “come alive” in a stimulating narrative.  Dr. Rex Bolinger, a Senior Fellow with Sagamore, hopes that will change soon with the publication of a new textbook, America: The Last Best Hope.  This two volume text was written by Dr. William J. Bennett, former  Secretary of Education and director of the National Endowment for the Humanities under President Ronald Reagan, who sought to “recapture the glory” and “conviction about American greatness and purpose” in history. 

As one of those committed to improving history education, Bolinger is serving as the project director of Team HOPE (History Opens Eyes).  This group of educators and history specialists, including several Milken Educators Award recipients, has joined with Bennett to create “Roadmap,” an online resource for teachers and students as a companion to the textbook.  There are lesson plans, suggestions for classroom activities, student guides, and links for more in-depth study of primary sources and subject matter.

Bolinger has served as a teacher, assistant principal, and principal in Indiana, and he has been the recipient of a Milken Family Foundation Award and named Indiana High School Principal of the year in 1997-1998. He was program manager for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey, where he helped to establish early college high schools at universities, namely Tri-State University Middle College, a charter school in Angola, Indiana, and the Herron High School, a classical liberal arts charter high school in Indianapolis.  

In the fall of 2008, the Indiana State Board of Education called for a “deeper review” to find textbooks that “bring history and other social studies to life.”  In February 2009, the State Board announced that it had found only one history textbook that enhanced student interest in history – Bennett’s America: The Last Best Hope.

Given today’s state of history education in the United States, people continue to ask why students are not developing a comprehensive view of American history or even a sense of their own personal history.  Many claim that the problem can be attributed to the emphasis on standardized tests over historical understanding, the quality of teacher education, and very dry history textbooks.   

Team HOPE is working with Interactive, Inc., a Virginia-based evaluation company, to study the students who use America: The Last Best Hope.  They will track student attitudes and achievement over the course of a school year to determine if the new textbook contributed to improved understanding and appreciation of history.  Currently, there are approximately twenty Indiana schools and districts that have adopted the Bennett text and curriculum.

Bolinger concludes that America: The Last Best Hope will not solve the dilemma facing the quality of today’s history education on its own.  He acknowledges that multiple factors – better teacher training in subject matter, ongoing professional development opportunities, improved standards at the state level, and more interesting and challenging texts and curriculum materials – can help the cause.  In the meantime, Bolinger hopes that this new history textbook will excite its readers with the stories and personalities that shaped the American nation, thus addressing the lack of historical knowledge and appreciation among the American people.