Alexander's Bill to Improve the Teaching of History and Civics Passes Out of Committee

Alexander's Bill to Improve the Teaching of History and Civics Passes Out of Committee

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) today praised Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) passage of S. 860, the American History Achievement Act. The bill would create a 10-state pilot study to provide state-by-state comparisons of U.S. history and civics test data for 8th and 12th grades administered through the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to assess and improve knowledge of American history and civics. The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) will determine which 10 states will participate in the pilot program.

"The American History Achievement Act is one more step toward putting the teaching of American history and civics back into our classrooms, so our children grow up learning what it means to be an American," said Alexander, who co-authored S. 860 with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA). "High school seniors score lower on U.S. history than on any other subject. By permitting state-by-state comparisons of 8th and 12th grade scores, we can better determine what our children are and are not learning, so that improvements can be made. I've enjoyed working with Senator Kennedy on this important initiative. I appreciate the unanimous support the bill received by our colleagues on the HELP Committee, and I look forward to moving this bill so the full Senate can support it as well.

"Our current immigration debate in the Senate has shed even more light on the importance of making sure our students are learning American history and civics," Alexander added. "Our purpose in creating public schools 150 years ago was so that immigrant children could learn to read and write in English, learn math, and learn what it means to be an American. The NAEP assessments under this bill will help us understand how well we are doing in that mission and ensure that our public schools continue to strive towards that mission to this very day."

The 2001 NAEP assessment in United States history had the largest percentage of students scoring below basic of any subject that was tested, including mathematics, science, and reading. Other findings concluded:

· 75 percent of 4th grade students could not correctly identify "the three parts of the federal government of the United States" out of four possible choices;
· 73 percent of 4th graders could not identify the Constitution from among four choices as "the document that contains the basic rules used to run the United States government;"
· 91 percent of 8th grade students could not "list two issues that were important in causing the Civil War," nor "list the Northern and Southern positions on each of these issues."

The NAEP U.S. history test is currently given on the national level, but not to enough students to be statistically significant. The American History Achievement Act gives the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) the authority to administer a ten state pilot study - so that a statistically significant number of students can be tested and data can be compared among those 10 states. That data will provide feedback on which states are doing a better job of teaching American history, allowing other states to model their programs on what is working well.

The American History Achievement Act will now move to the full Senate for consideration.

http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=1013&Month=5&Year=2006