Reuniting the Historical Profession

The broad historical profession was united in the 1890s under the aegis of the American Historical Association and remained so until about 1940. Until then many AHA members considered the curricula of elementary and second­ary school courses in history and allied courses of professional concern and, to some degree, their responsibility. The Committee of Ten of 1893, the Com­mittee of Seven of 1899, the Committee of Eight of 1909, the Committee of Five of 1911, the National Education Associ­ation’s Committee on Social Studies of 1916, and the Commission on Social Studies of 1930 and I934 (the years refer to the dates of their reports) were either AHA committees or, in the cases of the Committee of Ten and the NEA’s committee of 1916, committees in which members of the AHA played leading roles.

In addition to serving on the several commissions and committees concerned with the content of school history and social science courses, the AHA main­tained close contact with the schools through standing committees and mag­azines such as History Teacher’s Magazine, Historical Outlook, Social Studies, and So­cial Education.

Then, during the 1940s a gulf be­tween academic historians and school teachers and administrators developed, and it widened rapidly between the late 1940s and the late 1970s. A visible sign that the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and the AHA had bro­ken their previous close connection came in 1955, when the NCSS took complete control of Social Education, al­ though for some time two AHA repre­sentatives continued to sit on the execu­tive board.

The separation that occurred in these years was probably inevitable, given the circumstances of the time. The NCSS was concerned with the organization and professionalization of school teach­ers and administrators and broadening its ranks to include many representatives of the social sciences other than history. Meanwhile, academic historians in the by-now two major nonspecialized historical organizations—the AHA and the Mississippi Valley Historical Associ­ation (renamed the Organization of American Historians in 1965)—were overwhelmed by the rapid growth of graduate programs, and the younger members of those associations were nat­urally interested in advancing their ca­reers. Unfortunately, the separation turned into alienation between the mid­ 1960s and 1984.

There were only a few indications in the post-Sputnik years that professional historians were still interested in their colleagues in the schools. Between 1958 and 1965 the AHA’s Service Center for Teachers of History sponsored the writ­ing and publication of seventy-four pamphlets on various aspects and fields of history. However, most of these pamphlets were historiographical essays that were better suited to the needs of graduate students and college teachers than to teachers in secondary schools. In addition, there were numerous summer seminars run by university professors for high school teachers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, funded by the National Defense Education Act of 1958. But these seminars had little im­pact upon the great body of high school history teachers, since most of those who participated taught Advanced Placement courses.

The great sea change came in the early 1980s, when accusations of alarm­ing decline in standards in all fields of elementary and secondary school edu­cation startled and disturbed millions of thoughtful Americans. Most of the credit for this awakening must go to the National Commission on Excellence in Education (Nation at Risk) and such concerned scholars as Ernest L. Boyer, Theodore R. Sizer, Hazel Whitman Hertzberg, and William J. Bennett. The impact on the NCSS, the AHA, and the OAH of their reports was immediate and direct, and most particularly on the NCSS. In 1984, the leaders of that orga­nization, concerned for coherent re­form of the social studies curriculum in the schools, brought in a new Executive Director, Ms. Frances Haley. The NCSS also organized a number of committees that continue to examine the content and the grade placement of social stud­ies courses.

The AHA and the OAH also re­sponded to this incipient campaign for reforming the social studies curricula in the schools. National History Day, founded by David Van Tassel in 1974, gained the support of the AHA, the OAH, and the NCSS and, since about 1983, has grown into a nationwide pro­gram.

The AHA has also sponsored the writing and publication of pamphlets on guidelines for the certification of history teachers and the preparation of secondary-school history teachers; has sponsored regional conferences for teachers; and now has in progress the prepara­tion of topical pamphlets on teaching history designed particularly for high school teachers.

The OAH, in 1973, established an ad hoc Committee on the Status of History in the Schools. This committee’s report, written by Richard S. Kirkendall and published in the September 1975, issue of The journal of American History, was one of the earliest surveys and calls for thoroughgoing reform. The OAH also began publication in 1986 of the Maga­zine of History for junior and senior high school teachers.

Perhaps the most significant recent initiative is the History Teaching Alli­ance, the brainchild of Kermit Hall of the University of Florida, organized by the AHA, the NCSS, and the OAH in 1984 “to provide direction and secure community support for the creation of collaborative programs which bring uni­versity and secondary school teachers into sustained contact.” The creation of the alliance marked possibly the first time since the 1940s that the two profes­sional historical associations joined the NCSS in a formal collaboration. The success of the alliance in bringing pro­fessors and school teachers together in a summer institute and local seminars has been dramatic. It has grown to a nation­-wide program within a little more than two years.

In the knowledge that state education departments and state and district cur­ricular commissions were eager to work with professional historians, I intro­duced a resolution at the centennial meeting of the Council of the AHA on May 11, 1984. It empowered the presi­dent to appoint a blue-ribbon commis­sion, composed of academic historians; leaders in  secondary school teaching, administration, and governance; and distinguished public members, to sur­vey, as did the Committee of Ten and the Committee of Seven, the current situation regarding history in our high schools, and to recommend proposals for curricular reform and proper stan­dards for the training of high school history teachers. The Council adopted this resolution unanimously. Samuel R. Gammon and Jamil Zainaldin of the AHA staff and I searched in vain during the summer and autumn of 1984 for money to get the AHA commission under way. In my presidential address I expressed the hope that the commission would soon be constituted; privately, I had concluded that the project was dead.

Then  Providence  intervened to change my plan, perhaps for the better. In April 1985, the Executive Board of the OAH, of which I was then presi­dent, voted to accept the AHA Council’s invitation to join forces and begin a new effort for funding. Then, not more than two weeks later, Dr. Gammon called to say that Ms. Haley, the new Executive Director of the NCSS, wanted to meet with the two of us.

Our meeting on May 18, 1985, was the turning point in the movement for a national commission on the social stud­ies in the schools. Ms. Haley made clear the new objectives and direction of the NCSS and said that it was eager to enter into a coalition with the AHA, the OAH, and other appropriate professional as­sociations to form a national commis­sion to survey the whole problem of reform. Moreover, Ms. Haley said, the NCSS was prepared to provide the money necessary to organize the commission.

Events moved as rapidly as interor­ganizational negotiations can proceed. In June, the NCSS Board of Directors adopted a resolution calling for the cre­ation of a National Commission on the Social Studies and appropriated $20,000 for the planning phase. Jerri Sutton, the volunteer staff director for the commission, worked through the summer and autumn, mainly in communicating with the professional associations. Dr. Sutton met with Ernest L. Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foun­dation for the Advancement of Teach­ing, and me in Princeton on December 4, 1985. We constituted ourselves a pre­liminary executive committee, and Dr. Boyer formally allied the Carnegie Foundation with the coalition for a na­tional commission. On December 27, the Council of the AHA heartily en­dorsed the plan for a broad commission, and, three days later, a group from the Council presented a plan for the struc­ture and mission of the national com­mission to the president, the executive director, and other representatives of the NCSS. They warmly and graciously approved it. Next, on April 10, 1986, the Executive Board of the OAH voted unanimously to join the coalition.

Dr. Sutton resigned in June and was succeeded by Fay Metcalf, a former high school teacher, whose PhD is in history and social studies education. Dr. Metcalf has long been involved in the activities of the OAH and The College Board. All through the summer, Dr. Metcalf, Dr. Boyer, and I worked on the arrangements for a planning confer­ence to deliberate and determine the steps to be taken to constitute the na­tional commission and to define its broad mission and particular tasks. The task of choosing the members of the planning council fell upon us. It was a solemn responsibility; we wanted, above all, persons of broad experience in the classroom, in curricular planning and administration, and in the appropriate social science disciplines, yet persons who would look at the social studies in the schools without feeling they should represent a special discipline or interest. We also wanted persons who really were prepared to participate in a lot of hard work. After much consultation with our respective colleagues and the executive directors of the NCSS, the AHA, the OAH, and other professional organiza­tions, invitations were issued for the planning conference held at Airlie, Virginia from November 4 through 7, 1986.

… the NCSS … was eager to enter into a coalition with the AHA, the OAH, and other appropriate professional associations to form a national commission to survey the whole problem of reform.

Planning participants included Mil­dred Alpern, a secondary teacher of history and sociology from New York; Donald H. Bragaw, chief of social stud­ies, New York State Department of Edu­cation, and former president of the NCSS; Mary McFarland, supervisor of social studies and director of staff devel­opment, Parkway School, St. Louis; Pa­tricia Albjerg Graham, dean of the Har­vard Graduate School of Education; Natalie Zemon Davis, professor of his­tory, Princeton University, and presi­dent-elect of the AHA; Hazel Whitman Hertzberg, Teachers College of Columbia University; Salvatore Natoli, Associ­ation of American Geographers; Frances Haley, NCSS; Michael Mac­Dowell, Joint Council on Economic Education; Mary Hepburn, Vinson In­stitute of Government, University of Georgia; Christine Burgess, principal of Lincoln Junior High School, Washing­ ton, DC; and Stanley P. Wronski, pro­fessor emeritus of education and social science, Michigan State University. Er­nest Boyer; Myron Marty, dean, Drake University; and Harold Raynolds, Jr., Commissioner of Education of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, were unable to attend.

The most striking aspect of the Airlie conference was the unanimity of opin­ion on two basic assumptions: first, that the social studies in the schools are pres­ently in disarray and in need of drastic reform and, second, that history is the single discipline that can give coherence to social studies curricula, which should of course also include civics or govern­ment, geography, and other appropri­ate disciplines. Also all participants were profoundly concerned with the broad objective of reform and with all its rami­fications.

The following are the recommenda­tions of the Airlie conference:

1. The work of the commission must focus on the needs of students and be supportive of their teach­ers.
2. The commission’s work must help the general public develop a greater understanding of what the social studies are about, their vital role in citizenship education, and their equally vital role in helping students gain an under­ standing of the past and present conditions of human society as a basis for productive and thoughtful participation in all realms of human affairs as we move into the twenty-first century.
3. The commission should build a federation of disciplines central to the social studies, fostering an on­going cooperative effort to develop and then to monitor, and re­vise as necessary, the K–12 social studies curriculum. Recommen­dations of standards and guide­lines should be based on both the knowledge derived from the disciplines and research on cognitive development.
4. The commission must examine and make appropriate recommendations for any needed changes in components that should support a preferred social studies curriculum: teacher training, both preservice and inservice; assessment and evaluation of courses and of student achievement; and instructional materials used for social studies course work, including textbooks, supplementary readings, films, simu­lations, and role playing activities.
5. The commission should also ex­amine the work of previous commissions for guidance on structure, research questions, and formats for reporting findings.
6. The commission membership should include members of the general public, academicians, school administrators, teacher educators, and classroom teachers.
7. The commission should be estab­lished for a period of time sufficient to: a) collect or commission quantitative and ethnographical studies on the current status of social studies in the schools, ana­lyze these data, and use them as a basis for making recommenda­tions; b) develop goals for K–12 social studies education broken into sub-goals for primary, ele­mentary, middle, and senior high school level course work … ; c) consider whether also to study the introductory college-level courses; d) issue a statement with­in two years that will arouse the attention of the general public as well as educators to the impor­tance of the social studies and to the intent of the commission; and e) issue within five years a set of recommendations for change that will help multiple audiences to understand and to support quality social studies courses.

Several additional recommendations came from meetings of Boyer, Metcalf, and Link, as well as from an all-day Executive Committee planning session held at the Carnegie Center in Princeton on January 24, 1987. Joining us for that meeting were: Myron Marty; David Jenness, director, Consortium of Social Science Associations; Natalie Davis; Salvatore Natoli; Robert Forster, professor of history, Johns Hopkins University, who represented Patricia Graham; and Donald Bragaw, who was subsequently appointed to serve along with Boyer and me as a co-chair of the commission. It was agreed that, for want of a better one, the commission should bear the name of “The National Commission on the Social Studies.” It was also agreed that the National Commission should consist of the members of the Executive Committee (Carl Kaestle, professor of history and educational policy studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, will serve in place of Graham and Davis; Harold Raynolds and Mary McFarland will join those mentioned above), and of about thirty members, broadly representative, of distinguished public mem­bers; politically important persons at strategic levels in education, such as governors, chief state school officers, state legislators, etc.; and leaders in the scholarly disciplines, school administra­tion, and teachers in the schools.

The Executive Committee confirmed Fay Metcalf’s appointment as Executive Director and accepted Ms. Haley’s gen­erous offer to absorb some of the costs for housing the Commission in Washington, DC, and to receive and dis­burse its funds. However, the National Commission will have its own staff and budget and be responsible to the gov­erning boards of the sponsoring institu­tions: the AHA, the Carnegie Endow­ment, the NCSS, and the OAH, and, we expect, other appropriate organiza­tions.

At the present writing (February 19, 1987), Boyer, Bragaw, Link, and Met­calf are developing a list of potential commissioners and members of task forces and working groups; preparing a statement for the public to describe the National Commission and its mission; and working on strategies for further funding.

This, then, is where we now stand. Thanks to the formal action of their respective governing bodies, the AHA, the Carnegie Foundation, the NCSS, and the OAH are united in a great and worthy national commission for the first time in their histories. For the first time since 1934—fifty-three long years—concerned public leaders, academic historians, social scientists, and leading in­dividuals in the schools, school gover­nance, and administration will unite for dialogue, decision, and action to pro­mote the cause of the reform and re­newal of the social studies in the schools.