{"id":4247,"date":"2003-07-21T15:53:41","date_gmt":"2003-07-21T15:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4247"},"modified":"2003-07-21T15:53:41","modified_gmt":"2003-07-21T15:53:41","slug":"historians-on-the-civic-ed-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4247","title":{"rendered":"historians on the civic ed. bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is from the National<\/p>\n

Coalition for History (NCH)<\/p>\n

Washington update<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

We now have some additional information<\/p>\n

and some troubling news … The Senate appropriations committee recommends a program<\/p>\n

increase of $15 million specifically for the President Bush’s "We the<\/p>\n

People" initiative <\/b>[to promote the teaching of history and civics in<\/p>\n

schools]. While at first the increase might appear to be a cause for celebration,<\/p>\n

the committee failed to embrace the administration’s recommendation of $25 million<\/p>\n

and it made it clear that it wants the final design of the NEH’s "We the<\/p>\n

People" initiative to reflect "congressional priorities" — meaning<\/p>\n

pending legislation (S. 504) sponsored by Senator Lamar Alexander — the "American<\/p>\n

History and Civics Education Act of 2003"<\/b> — that recently passed the<\/p>\n

Senate 90-0 and is currently pending in the House.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For what<\/p>\n

little it’s worth, I have endorsed<\/a> the<\/p>\n

Alexander bill, which would mainly create summer academies for teachers and students.<\/p>\n

However, it would be troubling if the necessary money came straight out of the<\/p>\n

NEH budget. <\/p>\n

According to the NCH, some in the "history community …<\/p>\n

point out that the Alexander bill is heavily loaded with what is characterized<\/p>\n

as ‘value-laden concepts,’ thus raising concerns about ‘the politicization of<\/p>\n

the teaching of history.’" The ideal of value-free history is dubious, for<\/p>\n

both epistemological and moral reasons. However, I can see the historians’ point<\/p>\n

that it is dangerous for Congress to mandate particular values in the teaching<\/p>\n

of history. At least, this should be done carefully and with public debate. I<\/p>\n

also think that there is a difference between "civics" (which ought<\/p>\n

to be heavily value-laden) and history (which needs to be more "objective").<\/p>\n

This difference makes it problematic to lump history and civics together in the<\/p>\n

same federal program with the same authorizing language. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is from the National Coalition for History (NCH) Washington update: We now have some additional information and some troubling news … The Senate appropriations committee recommends a program increase of $15 million specifically for the President Bush’s "We the People" initiative [to promote the teaching of history and civics in schools]. While at first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocating-civic-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}