Shanker Institute calls for strengthened content in history and civics
Democracy: Teach it

Education for Democracy , published by the Albert Shanker Institute in September to tie in with the new school year, the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington, is a 40-page statement that calls for improvement in the teaching of democracy and an expanded course of study in history, civics and the humanities.

Calling on schools “to purposely impart to their students the learning necessary for an informed, reasoned allegiance to the ideals of a free society,” the statement notes that efforts to reach that goal have been undercut by textbooks tilted toward a negative depiction of American history.

“We are arguing for an education that tells our students the full story about the democratic struggle—warts and all,” AFT president Sandra Feldman said upon release of the statement. “We want knowledgeable students who will end up committed to a system that acknowledges weaknesses and tries to fix them, while valuing democracy and wanting to extend it.”

It’s important that students “understand not only our flaws and failings,” said Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, “but also the degree to which the United States was really the first modern democracy, and the degree to which it has inspired democracies around the world.”

The new document advocates a study of history in which objectivity and neutrality should not be confused. “We need to present American history in a way that neither minimizes nor magnifies our failings,” Feldman said. “At the same time we owe our students an honest portrait of dictators who have inflicted massive suffering on their own people and others. We cannot airbrush away the atrocities that have characterized many repressive regimes.”

The AFT president issued the following call for action:

• Urge the education community to read and support Education for Democracy and Educating Democracy: State Standards To Ensure a Civic Core  (an earlier institute study, which makes clear that despite the successes of the standards movement, many states still relegate history and civics standards to a secondary status);

• Use the recommendations to revise course requirements, curriculum, textbooks and teaching;

• Improve state standards in history and civics by developing a common core of learning, centered on the individuals, ideas and events that have shaped our democracy;

• Adopt a strong curriculum for the middle and high school grades that requires at least two or three years of U.S. history, at least two years of world history, American government at least in the senior year, and at least one year of world geography;

• Increase and improve the teaching of history, presenting it chronologically so that students can understand the sequence and context of events;

• Study other nations as well as our own in an unsentimental way that helps our students eventually make choices about the decisions America faces;

• Urge the Bush administration to utilize Education for Democracy  in designing programs funded under the civic education provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act and other programs it has initiated in history and civics.

Education for Democracy  has been endorsed by more than 140 prominent citizens, scholars and educators across the political spectrum—including former President Bill Clinton, Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami, former Michigan Gov. John Engler, renowned writer and Afro-American scholar Henry Louis Gates, former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), actor Christopher Reeve and essayist Richard Rodriguez.

For details or to download Education for Democracy , visit www.ashankerinst.org. The statement is also available as a paperback book for $5 per copy ($2.50 each for orders of 10 or more). To order, write: The Albert Shanker Institute, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20001, phone 202/879-4401 or e-mail info@ashankerinst.org.

Named in honor of the late AFT president, the Albert Shanker Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to three themes: children’s education, unions as advocates for quality, and freedom of association in the public life of democracies.

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