How world history is taught gets Arkansas an ‘F’ in study
Posted on Tuesday, June 6, 2006
With its knack for finding the soft underbelly of Arkansas ’ education standards, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute today gave Arkansas’ world history education standards an “F” because the 2000 standards don’t refer to specific world events and provide no guide to what high school students should know by the time they graduate.
In the study, Arkansas is one of 33 states to get a D or an F, earning a numerical score that ranks the Natural State 36 th out of 48 states and Washington, D. C. Iowa and Rhode Island were not included. A total of 12 states earned A’s and B’s in the study titled, “The State of State World History Standards: 2006,” published by the nonprofit, Washington-based institute headed by Chester E. Finn Jr., an assistant U. S. secretary of education in the Reagan administration.
The standards used in Arkansas received 25 out of a possible 110 points for the content or material identified to be taught in its world history standards, and 13 out of a potential 60 points for instruction or the approach in the standards to teaching in a way that is of interest to students.
“It is never made clear just what students are expected to know upon graduating high school,” the report says about Arkansas standards, or “frameworks,” as they are termed by the Arkansas Department of Education. “This problem could be fixed if the standards provided suitable references to actual historical events and people — both of which are 100 percent absent.” Initially, Arkansas’ curriculum frameworks in all subject areas were written broadly to cover material to be taught in clusters of grades: kindergarten through four, five through eight, and high school.
The Fordham critique said such an approach tends to leave teachers with little guidance on what to teach. It’s a complaint that the institute has made in the past about Arkansas standards.
“Rather than asking students to look at the birth of Christ or the fall of the Soviet Union, for example, students are encouraged to evaluate major turning points in history,” the study said about the standards. “Rather than mentioning the struggle for a balance of power in the wake of the Napoleonic wars, students are encouraged to ‘probe the interdependencies of nations.’ This approach does nothing to ensure that students learn world history,” the study said.
Julie Johnson Thompson, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said Monday that department staff had not seen the Fordham study and couldn’t respond directly to the findings.
Thompson did say, however, that Arkansas’ social studies frameworks, including history, are scheduled for an overhaul.
“Beginning this summer, the revision of the frameworks will start,” Thompson said. “We have to have something to present to the state Board of Education in the spring of 2007.” Those revised standards will be prepared by a committee of social studies teachers and university faculty members using teacher surveys, national studies including the Fordham work, and standards from other states. The revised social studies frameworks are expected to duplicate the grade-by-grade format that was adopted in recent years for revised standards in English / language arts, math and science, Thompson said.
The institute has routinely given Arkansas’ education standards low grades. The same set of history standards earned an F in 2003 for treatment of American history. It also gave the state an overall F, including D’s in English / language arts and in math, in a 2000 study that covered standards for five subjects.
Walter Russell Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U. S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, authored the latest study on behalf of the Fordham Institute, which was established in 1966 to improve education by addressing education standards, strengthening accountability and expanding educational options to parents for their families.
In a teleconference with reporters Monday, Mead called for a greater emphasis on Latin American, Middle Eastern and Asian history in light of the national and international policy issues facing the United States. Because of the importance of good foreign policy, he also urged that world history be put on the “A List” of academic subjects that are tested and are prerequisites for promotion and graduation. Only New York, New Jersey and Virginia have such testing requirements. He was complimentary of the Advanced Placement World History Exam, the New York Regents exam and the SAT II test in world history.
“The states that did a good job were serious about content,” Mead said. “The content was fact-based, narratively driven. It wasn’t thematic. It wasn’t abstract. The states gave teachers and curriculum designers real guidance about what to do. They had a good balance between Western and non-Western history and had enough of both so that students had a good introduction to both.” The study can be read at the institute’s Web site, www. edexcellence. net.
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