PEN America Index of Educational Gag Orders - Google Sheets
PEN America's live documentation record of efforts to restrict education tracks what it calls "Gag Orders"
War on History Education
America's Censored Classrooms - PEN America
Educational gag orders have increased 250 percent compared to 2021. Thirty-six different states have introduced 137 gag order bills in 2022 - This research documents many of the attacks against learning about the past
Rand Corporation: Walking on Eggshells—Teachers' Responses to Classroom Limitations on Race- or Gender-Related Topics: Findings from the 2022 American Instructional Resources Survey | RAND
This research measures and documents the degree to which the war on history is succeeding in shaping a public understanding of the past.
About one-quarter of teachers reported that limitations placed on how teachers can address topics related to race or gender have influenced their choice of curriculum materials or instructional practices.
teachers most commonly pointed to parents and families as sources of the limitations they experienced.
Teachers perceived that limitations placed on how they can address race- or gender-related topics negatively affected their working conditions, and they worried about limitations' consequences for student learning
Florida Officials Had Repeated Contact With College Board Over African American Studies - The New York Times
Our commitment to AP African American Studies, the scholars, and the field – All Access | College Board
Feb 2023 statement of the College Board
Our exchanges with them are actually transactional emails about the filing of paperwork to request a pilot course code and our response to their request that the College Board explain why we believe the course is not in violation of Florida laws
What does the word ‘intersectionality’ mean?” and “Does the course promote Black Panther thinking?” FDOE did not bring any African American Studies scholars or teachers to their call with us, despite the presence in their state of so many renowned experts in this discipline.
Florida expresses gratitude for the removal of 19 topics, none of which they ever asked us to remove, and most of which remain in the official framework.
Social Construct or race has been removed
FDOE’s most recent letter continues to deride the field of African American Studies by describing key topics as “historically fictional.” We have asked them what they meant by that accusation, and they have failed to answer. The College Board condemns this uninformed caricature of African American Studies and the harm it does to scholars and students.
Nikole Hannah-Jones on Opposition to the 1619 Project and Teaching Slavery in Schools ‹ Literary Hub
Quick read with effective language and potent quotes to see the attack on history education as an exercise of power
The assertions about the role slavery played in the American Revolution shocked many of our readers. But these assertions came directly from academic historians who had been making this argument for decades. Plainly, the historical ideas and arguments in the 1619 Project were not new.
What seemed to provoke so much ire was that we had breached the wall between academic history and popular understanding, and we had done so in <em>The New York Times</em>, the paper of record, in a major multimedia project led by a Black woman.
Those outside the academy tend to think of history as settled, as a simple recounting of what events happened on what date and who was involved in those incidents. But while history <em>is </em>what happened, it is also, just as important, how we <em>think </em>about what happened and what we unearth and choose to remember about what happened. Historians gather at conferences, present research, and argue, debate, and quibble over interpretations of fact and emphasis all the time. Scholars regularly publish articles that analyze, question, or disagree with the respected and peer reviewed work of their colleagues.
This belongs in every syllabus
Mary Ellen Hicks, a historian and Black studies scholar
“The discussions about the 1619 project … have made me realize that historians may have missed an opportunity to demystify the production of scholarly knowledge for the public. The unsexy answer is that we produce constantly evolving interpretations, not facts.”
It is the bitterest of ironies that the 1619 Project dispenses this malediction from the chair of ultimate cultural privilege in America, because in no human society has an enslaved people suddenly found itself vaulted into positions of such privilege, and with the consent—even the approbation—of those who were once the enslavers.”
The fact that what he is saying is true, doesn't overcome the overwhelming tone-deafness of him actually saying it. An older white guy professor doesn't get it. "Bitter irony" - really?
What these bills make clear is that the fights over the 1619 Project, like most fights over history, at their essence are about power.
“After all, as several eminent academics have recently reminded us, ‘nations need to control national memory, because nations keep their shape by shaping their citizens’ understanding of the past.’”
Active Educational Gag Order Legislation | AAUP
Like the PEN America catalog, the American Association of University Professors are also keeping track of laws changing the way history is taught
NCSS Response to the Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies Course Release | Social Studies
The NCSS is the largest organization of Social Studies educators in the county - this is their Feb 15 reaction to the APAAS issue.
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.
How the New York Times Got it Wrong on AP African American Studies – Newsroom
This was posted on the College Board sire - then removed. Making it harder and harder for a concerned social studies educator to know what to think about what happened because it is difficult to see what happened
Judd Legum on Twitter: "UPDATE: On February 1, the @CollegeBoard issued a press release claiming it had IRONCLAD PROOF that revisions to the AP African American Studies course were not influenced by Florida. THAT PRESS RELEASE HAS NOW BEEN DELETED FROM IT
Textbook Examination Impact Statement - University of Wyoming. Libraries Records
Typed report of the findings on the subversive and un-American textbook examination for the University of Wyoming in 1948
LISTEN Carefully to his Words. I’ve never previously recommended on my… | by Wesley Fryer | Apr, 2023 | Medium
The connection between the war on history and education is clear in the language of the right. This article is worth reading. Teachers and educators keeping their focus on only the minutia of the attack on their disciplines, with vouchers, abolished tenure and social studies standards should know the forces driving all of these intiatives
Florida’s State Academic Standards –Social Studies, 2023
Like the recent indictment's of the former president, United Nations climate change reports and other significant developments being argued about, it's always best to start with the document first, and the coverage 2nd. Here are the Florida standards at the center of the argument
West Virginia University Slashes Its Budget, Plans to Drop Languages - The New York Times
The state’s flagship school will no longer teach world languages or creative writing — a sign, its president says, of the future at many public universities.. These statistics and perspectives on the decline of humanities education
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.
A Profession, If You Can Keep It
Remarks originally made at the 2023 meeting of the American Historical Association in Philadelphia, explaining the existential crisis of academia
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="https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/what-should-we-do-about-undergrads-who-want-pursue-humanities-doctorate">&#8220;What Should We Do About Undergrads Who Want to Pursue a Humanities Doctorate?&#8221;</a> <em>Inside Higher Ed, </em>December 15, 2022. Accessed January 5, 2023." title="" aria-describedby="qtip-0"><sup>1</sup></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 & 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.
History Here and Now: The Issue of Presentism and Relevance
This can be used in conversations with parents and the community - the classroom is the safer place to explore the past than the firefights one finds online
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.