New Seminar by the Institute for Constitutional History: Capital as a Constitutional Issue: Land and Money, 1776–1900 Added December 16, 2015

AHA Signs American Anthropological Association Letter Opposing Appointees to New College of Florida Governing Board (January 2023) Added January 25, 2023

The AHA has signed onto a letter from the American Anthropological Association opposing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s appointment of six new members to the New College of Florida governing board. “The brazen aspiration of transforming a nationally ranked public honors college into a college along the lines of the private evangelical Christian Hillsdale College is especially alarming and appears to be nothing more than an orchestrated attack on academic integrity.”

AHA Signs On to American Anthropological Association Letter Opposing Appointees to New College of Florida Governing Board (January 2023) Added January 25, 2023

The AHA has signed onto a letter from the American Anthropological Association opposing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s appointment of six new members to the New College of Florida governing board. “The brazen aspiration of transforming a nationally ranked public honors college into a college along the lines of the private evangelical Christian Hillsdale College is especially alarming and appears to be nothing more than an orchestrated attack on academic integrity.”

AHA Executive Director Writes Editorial in The Hill (November 2020) Added November 10, 2020

AHA executive director Jim Grossman recently wrote an editorial in The Hill discussing the November 2 executive order, “On Establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission.” Grossman argues that the order “rests on caricatures of history education and remarkable ignorance about how historical knowledge evolves and finds its way into classrooms.”

AHA Member Interviewed on Public Radio East (January 2021) Added January 21, 2021

AHA member Robert DeLossa (Lowell High School) appeared on Public Radio East, where he explained how he teaches students about the inauguration. DeLossa also discussed the AHA’s statement on the report of the Advisory 1776 Commission, as well as comments by the National Council for the Social Studies, of which he is also a member. 

AHA Executive Director Quoted in Washington Post Article on Trump’s Agenda for Second Term (April 2023) Added April 26, 2023

AHA executive director James Grossman was quoted in a Washington Post article by Isaac Arnsdorf and Jeff Stein about the agenda that former president Donald Trump has laid out for his potential second term. Grossman spoke about Trump’s “patriotic” education platform, including his “1776 Commission,” which was condemned by the AHA in 2021. “What Trump is trying to resurrect is something that was thoroughly discredited by the professional historical community in a totally apolitical context,” Grossman said. “There’s lots of places to look and see what happens when history education gets stripped of its professional integrity in the interest of a political party.”

Maintaining Standards: Recent AHA Contributions to the Fight for Honest History Education Added April 13, 2023

Student Focused and Historically Accurate: The 2021 Texas Conference on Introductory History Courses Takes on Divisive Concepts Added December 21, 2021

AHA Collaborates on Proposed Virginia History and Social Science Draft Standards (December 2022) Added December 30, 2022

The American Historical Association, the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium, and the Virginia Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development “have collaborated to share their collective knowledge, experience, and expertise” to draft proposed history and social science standards for K–12 schools. Our work responds to the Virginia Board of Education’s (VBOE) determination at its recent meeting that neither of the two documents on the table were satisfactory; a new draft was needed that would combine the two proposals with reference to the existing (2015) standards. We are grateful to our partners for inviting the AHA to participate in the standards revision process. Brief Background: In October, the AHA sent a letter to the Virginia Department of Education urging adoption of draft standards of learning for history and social science submitted in August, and reiterating the AHA’s offer to assist if revisions were necessary. In November, the AHA encouraged historians to testify at a VBOE hearing that would consider the August proposal and a new document that was deeply flawed, rooted partly in the ill-fated federal “1776 Commission“ report (2021). The AHA’s letter warned that “a new version of revised standards, dated November 11, would create substantial gaps in the knowledge, historical thinking skills, and habits of mind taught to Virginia students.” “As the largest organization of professional historians in the world, the AHA can provide expertise and insights into history education at all levels, and we were happy to be helpful,” AHA executive director James Grossman told the Virginia Mercury. The new draft standards, which are expected to come before the Virginia Board of Education in January, were also featured in articles from Virginia Public Media and DC News Now.

100 Milestone Documents Added September 28, 2020