House Republicans Move to Eliminate Grants for Teaching American History

House Republicans Move to Eliminate Grants for Teaching American History

Republicans in the U.S House have introduced legislation to eliminate funding for grants from the U.S. Department of Education to teach American History, labeling such expenditures a waste of money.

The Teaching American History grant program, which began in 2001, gave a total of $119 million in FY 2010 to 124 local educational agencies with the goal of teaching traditional U.S. history as a separate subject matter.

Representative John Kline (R-Minnesota), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said he supports the move because “right now, far too many taxpayer dollars are dedicated to ineffective, redundant K-12 programs.”

The National Coalition for History, which opposes the bill, accused Republicans of relying on an outdated Office of Management and Budget assessment of federal history-teaching grants to justify their position.

http://www.allgov.com/Where_is_the_Money_Going/ViewNews/House_Republicans_Move_to_Eliminate_Grants_for_Teaching_American_History_110515

Without the grants I'm sure that the social studies and history teachers will be forced to spend at least 100 hours with their students staring at the walls, without anything to teach. (Many of the students will discern no difference, of course. Most of the others will find it to be a relief.)

The teachers obviously have no materials or knowledge concerning their subject. Any materials that had been produced probably just became obsolete--I mean, 19th century American history is a field where every year there are revolutionary discoveries that make everything known the previous year just wrong. Last year Lincoln was the president during the Civil War; this year, it's discovered the Civil War was actually the 1861 War, fought in Canada, and it wasn't Lincoln who was president, but McHenry who was co-premier. It wasn't Grant vs. Lee, but Fowler vs. Hinckly, and Sherman didn't march across Georgia to the sea producing bowties, instead Butterick pranced through the Columbia River Valley on his way to the Three Sisters where he made farfalle. The future is easy to predict; it's the past that's unpredictable.

The school districts and states can produce no curricula or scopes and sequences without outside money. They hire specialists for that, but they, alas, only know to stare at the wall. Since it takes 13 months to produce a curriculum and every fact in the discipline change every 12 months, it's actually cost effective for them to consider how the paint dried.

Now, don't get me wrong, history is a very good thing to teach, assuming that we can actually agree on a common narrative. But it's not like it wasn't taught before this particular pot of money became available. It's just that having become available the money is now required. Programs can be good or bad before they're instituted; afterwards, they're merely required. That sort of programmatic money is a lot like heroin. If it's not in your bloodstream and you've never used it, eh. But after a few years of regular doses, that "eh" becomes a long, drawn-own moan of pain if it's withdrawn.

In ed psych they teach you that reward systems are good and dandy, but if you institute a reward to encourage what a kid is already doing you can *weaken* that behavior so that when the reward is withdrawn you've eliminated the good behavior. The kid expected no reward for doing good; then was paid for doing good, and when the pay was taken away felt cheated.

When I was a substitute teacher, I shared stuff that wasn't even in the textbooks. I called it "The OTHER Thanksgiving", from the point of view of the Native Americans.

Kids aren't taught Civics. Take away a critical study of history and they will never become responsible and independent citizens.

so all you American citizens can just STFU, stop whining about the NEW IMPROVED 'HISTORY' (R) and sit down.

They know an accurate reading of American History does not include the right wing, christian, fascist version they have been peddling as justification for turning this country into a right win USSR...

I was shocked that American History is not a required subject in this state. It was in NYS in 1965 when I was in school, and it still is. In fact, the state has added US Government and Politics, and Participation in Government, to the list of required subjects in order to graduate and get a HS diploma.

It seems the Republicans, and certain states, want the citizens of the USA to be ignorant and compilable. That is how they get elected.

I was shocked that American History is not a required subject in this state. It was in NYS in 1965 when I was in school, and it still is. In fact, the state has added US Government and Politics, and Participation in Government, to the list of required subjects in order to graduate and get a HS diploma.

It seems the Republicans, and certain states, want the citizens of the USA to be ignorant and compliable. That is how they get elected.

that will allow the GOP to create whatever history they deem useful

yup