Forging Partnerships: K-12 Teachers and History Professors, 1983–96 and Beyond

Linda Symcox’s paper will start with “A Nation at Risk,” (1983), the clarion call to recognize the deplorable state of American education. Social Studies was seen to be the enemy of history by conservative reformers, who used their new bully pulpit to position history at center stage in the curriculum. But, ironically, out of this conservative call for reform came new kinds of collaboration between K-12 teachers and academic historians: the Bradley Commission on History in the Schools (today called the National Council for History Education), the California History Project, and the for History in the Schools, including the National History Standards Project.

This paper will explore from a grass roots perspective how K-12 teachers came into major leadership roles in these projects, contributing equally with academic historians to the reform of history education nationwide. …  However, ideological disputes over what history content should be taught in the schools, such as the 18-month dispute over the National History Standards during the mid 1990s, temporarily derailed this fruitful collaboration. But in spite of these high profile “culture wars,” grass roots collaborations between college professors and K-12 teachers later resumed at the national level, with