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Schools Aren’t Teaching Kids to Argue Truth to Power

State Education Standards Are Failing Students by Ignoring Why History Matters

Why can’t history classes show students why history matters?

That’s what I thought as I read through a new framework for teaching K-12 history in the U.S.—California’s History-Social Science Framework.

This is supposed to be the new, 21st-century approach. It spans hundreds of pages of minute detail. But the document privileges comprehensiveness over vision. This history framework doesn’t seem to recognize the value of history.

Consider the framework for fifth grade. It’s 164 pages. The book-length document defines the theme for the year (“making a new nation”) and provides a jumble of guiding …

By Rachel Burstein |

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My Immigrant Kids Don’t Test Well—But They’re Learning

In This High School Classroom, Resilience Is as Important as Textbooks

by Anne Raeff |

My mother immigrated to the United States when she was 16, in May of 1943. Though she didn’t know English when she arrived, she claims that by the fall she …

How Do You Measure a Teacher’s Worth?

A New Evaluation Method Shows Promise in Rebuilding Trust Between Educators and Those Who Are Grading Them

by Karen Hunter Quartz |

Imagine one morning, coffee in hand, you head to the website of your local newspaper, type in your name, and up pops how you rank in relation to your colleagues …


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