Office of the Connecticut State Historian

     In yet another sign that the Connecticut Department of Education believes knowledge of history is irrelevant to creating informed future citizens, the state's proposed curriculum standards for social studies education have received an F  from the Thomas B  Fordham Institute's recently released study The State of State History Standards. Connecticut's grade was a dismal 1/10. 

     The report did not hold back. "Connecticut’s unofficially adopted social studies standards, insofar as they cover U.S. history at all, offer isolated historical scraps which are devoid of context, explanation, or meaning." It further notes that "Historical content is, at best, an afterthought."  and that "The standards merit a zero out of three for Clarity and Specificity."  See the report on Connecticut.  

    Many educators will disagree with the findings of the study. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a conservative think tank with a particular view of how history should be taught. This view holds that the best standards emphasize: 

ƒ• offer coherent chronological overviews of historical content, rather than ahistoric themes organized into different social studies strands;

ƒ• offer a clear sequence of content across grades, revisiting the content of early grades in later grades in a more thorough and sophisticated manner, appropriate to students’ developing cognitive abilities;

ƒ• systematically identify real (and important) people and specific events, and offer explanations of their significance;

• integrate political history with social and cultural history;

ƒ• ecognize historical balance and context, discussing — for example — both the rise of political liberty and the entrenchment of slavery in America, the growing conflict between these concepts, and the long American struggle toward greater social and political justice;

ƒ• recognize America’s European origins, while also acknowledging and integrating the roles and contributions of non-Western peoples;

ƒ• encourage comprehension of the past on its own terms, discouraging “presentism” — whereby students judge the past through the lens of today’s values, standards, and norms — and avoiding appeals to “personal relevance”; and

ƒ• be presented in clear, jargon-free language, with straightforward internal organization.

         Yet even those who object to the Fordham Institute's grading rubric, cannot help but be disappointed by the State Department of Education's chronic inattention to, and lack of regard for the importance of history in Connecticut students' education. Other signs that history is off the radar of those in charge of our state's educational system include:

          Failure to adopt or revise the proposed Social Studies Curriculum Standards for Connecticut  presented to the Department in November of 2009, after a lengthy development process. 

         Failure to staff the department with a full time Social Studies dedicated coordinator, relying instead on "Social Studies Consultants" or other staff members. 

         A social studies page on the State Department of Education website that apparantly has not been updated since 2009 View Webpage

        Connecticut's students, who by virtue of their residency in this state inherit one of the richest and most important historical legacies of any state in the nation, deserve much better from their educational leaders.