This eye-opening report reveals that despite growing public alarm about historical illiteracy and a Congressional Resolution calling for action, not a single one of America’s top 50 colleges and universities now requires the study of American history of its graduates. And in a continuing decline, only 10% of these same colleges require any study of history at all, a drop from 22% just two years prior. President Bush cited information in the report when he announced his national history and civics initiative in the Rose Garden on Constitution Day, September 17, 2002.
John and Abigail Adams envisioned an America with a school in every neighborhood and a well-informed citizenry that was adept in languages, literature, and music; science, history, and religion. Their vision was practical until the ages recast it, little by little. Then, sometime between Joseph McCarthy and Joan Baez, the status quo of the educational […]
On April 2, Nick Down, ACTA’s Associate Director of External Affairs, offered proponent testimony before the North Carolina House Higher Education Committee on H. 7. This legislation would require all students attending public colleges and universities within the state to take a three-credit hour course in American history prior to graduation. Read the full testimony […]
In this episode, ACTA Vice President of Policy Bradley Jackson talks with Jane Calvert, director of the John Dickinson Writings Project and a member of ACTA’s National Commission on American History and Civic Education.
President Bush today launched “We the People,” an initiative by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to encourage the teaching, studying and understanding of American history and culture. “Studies have shown that Americans of all ages have a dangerously poor understanding of American history and culture,” said NEH Chairman Bruce Cole, who joined the […]
Arizona’s college classrooms will be dressed in patriotic garb by this time next year, sporting U.S. flags and copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Charles Mitchell of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni thinks it would be nice if students had a deeper understanding of them, as well. But U.S. history isn’t […]
Once upon a time in the bad old days you couldn’t graduate from most colleges and universities without taking a course in both American and European history. Nobody grumbled about it. We were prisoners of a system that honored Abraham Lincoln’s famous caution: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.” In those bad old days such […]
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