LITTLE ROCK -- A bill designed to correct what critics see as deficiencies in new curriculum standards for hisotry study in public schools won committee approval Tuesday.
Senate Bill 1007 by State Sen. Linda Collins-Smith R-Pocahontas, now goes to the House of Representatives after getting the nod from the House Education Committee.
Collins-Smith said word of the standards spurred an outcry from parents and others after they learned after fifth grade, no history course would formally include study of the nation's history from the Colonial period through 1820.
Supporters of the new standards, which go into effect this fall, say they were developed by a diverse group of public school teachers, history professors and others.
One high school history teacher said he welcomed the standards because history for many of his students ends by 1950 because not enough time is available to cover all American history.
The new standards require eighth-graders to study history from 1820 to 1900 with post-1890 history covered in unspecified high school grades, according to the bill, which calls for a "relevant review" of U.S. history "from the period of colonization through 1890, specifically including the colonial period, the American Revolution, the foundations of the United States government, and the American Civil War."
Ken Yang, who works for the Arkansas Family Council, which backs the bill, told the committee his parents immigrated to the U.S. after the 1949 communist revolution in China.
"I can't imagine my parents coming here and not learning why this country is great," he said. "We need to learn about our past, our mistakes ... and our successes, what makes us a great country."
But Chuck West, who teaches U.S. history at Central High School in Little Rock, predicted the bill would have a "negative impact on the standards" all Arkansas high school graduates must meet and called the legislative initiative "micromanaging."
"I graduated in 1989," he said. "We never got past 1950. We have unlimited demands on limited time."
West argued early U.S. history, if taught correctly, can inform students' study of the nation's later history. For instance, West said, he regularly has his students consider the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy when they study later U.S. history.
NW News on 04/01/2015