Schools are under an intense amount of pressure, both internal and external, to produce competent, productive members of society. This is a time of high-stakes testing where every child must meet preset criteria to be recognized as successful, and every teacher is working frantically to make this happen. Students are being pressured by teachers who are being pressured by principals who are being pressured by superintendents who are being pressured by school boards who are being pressured by constituents to not be left behind by the educational process. The focus in many classrooms is placed on learning reading, mathematics, and science, however, not social studies. Ironically, it is social studies, or, to be more specific, history, that caused all of this pressure in the first place.
President Harry Truman, in 1946, established a commission to look into the state of the nation’s educational system. It was the first time such an undertaking was done by a president. “Higher Education for American Democracy (Higher Education for American Democracy, 2006), also called the “Truman Report,” was a six-volume tome focusing on the need for the country to establish postsecondary educational edifices. These schools were called “community colleges” by the commission and were meant to be free for anyone who would benefit by attending. Next came President Eisenhower’s “Committee on Education Beyond the High School” (President's Committee on Education Beyond the High School, 2006) in 1956. Again, the President was advised to place funding and effort into postsecondary educational initiatives.
However, while the federal government was studying ways to improve education, a man named John Dewey was actually improving education. A progressive, Dewey maintained that the best way for students to actually learn was by doing, constructing, if you will, their learning. Critics felt that Dewey’s ideals went too far away from the more basic, or traditional, role of public education: orating information. But, the fifties would soon give way to the more radical sixties. A new President was in the White House; a younger, freer thinking President. The nineteen sixties would, in many ways, validate Dewey and usher in an entire new way of looking at public education. Americans were about to be beaten into space by the Russians, and American students were going to be challenged to win the moon race, not for themselves, but for their country.
The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. This embarrassed the United States. They were just beaten into outer space by their staunchest Cold War foe. The public needed a scapegoat and public education was right there to take the fall. In actuality, the post-World War II baby-boom had inundated the American public school system. It was literally bogged down with too many students and not enough facilities or educators. President John F. Kennedy went to Congress and asked for $2.3 billion in aid for elementary and secondary public schools (O'Brien, 2005). In addition, the ripples of the Sputnik fiasco were being felt in curriculum changes in public classrooms. “New math” was a term given to radically new teaching concepts in mathematics and science were traditional mathematical topics were forgone in place of different number bases, set theory, and various algebraic practices. This movement upset parents who felt they could no longer assist their children with their homework and teachers who recognized that this was simply too far from the ordinary for students to comprehend.
“A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform” (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), commissioned by President Ronald Reagan, reported that American schools were failing. The report called for establishing a way to assess learning and teaching in all schools, public and private, and at all levels, elementary through postsecondary. The report itself was ominous in tone and set forth the notion that American students were behind the rest of the world in reading, math, and science. It is this document that the genesis for standards-based education begins.
Presidents Clinton and H. W. Bush have standards-based educational initiative reports to their credit. The bipartisan “Goals 2000: Educate America Act” (H.R. 1804 Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 1994) signed by President Clinton was an eight-point “framework” for meeting national educational goals. With the phrase “improving the quality of learning and teaching in the classroom,” “Goals 2000” tasked states to design standards for all students at all grade levels. Improving the “Goals 2000” legislation was President George H. W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Act” (PL 107-110, 2002) institutionalizes standards-based education into the American public school system. The Act puts forth concrete, measureable goals schools must reach in order to receive federal funds. Standards are to be set by states, but measured by this Act.
Why teach social studies? American public schools were founded on the ideals that students need to be prepared to participate in the republic that is America. While math and science have become the primary focal points in public education, knowing how the country came to be where it is today is a vital part of instilling the teachings of the past on the leaders of the future.
References
H.R. 1804 Goals 2000: Educate America Act. (1994, January 25). Retrieved October 8, 2009, from http://www.ed.gov/legislation/GOALS2000/TheAct/index.html
Higher Education for American Democracy. (2006). Retrieved October 8, 2009, from enotes.com: http://www.enotes.com/1940-education-american-decades-ps/higher-education-american-democracy-vol
National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983, April). A Nation At Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform. Retrieved October 8, 2009, from http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/index.html
O'Brien, M. (2005). John F. Kennedy: a biography. New York: St. Martin's Press.
PL 107-110. (2002, January 8). Retrieved October 8, 2009, from http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/107-110.pdf
President's Committee on Education Beyond the High School. (2006). Retrieved October 8, 2009, from enotes.com: http://www.enotes.com/1950-education-american-decades/presidents-committee-education-beyond-high-school
