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We Desperately Need a Real National Standard for Teaching High School History
And the same textbooks for every student everywhere
Many people naturally assume that the teaching of history in schools is standardized across the United States, but this is, in reality, not the case at all. While all students are required to take American History classes both to graduate and to be accepted into a university, what is taught in those classes can vary significantly both in different parts of the country and even within individual states. This is because each of the 50 states sets certain academic standards, including the crucial decision about which textbooks will be used and what information those books contain. Each local school district makes further decisions for their city or district, and each teacher brings their own personal beliefs and biases to the classroom.
The choice of which textbook students will use to learn history is the first, and in many ways, most important step in the process. It’s from these books that students get the first impression of the history they’re studying, even before the teacher’s take on the subject. It’s to these textbooks that the students will (in theory at least) turn when they are studying on their own. Thus, who chooses this gateway text is critical.
