A Current Events Response by
National Council for the Social Studies

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), the largest professional association in the country devoted solely to social studies education, strongly rejects the recent development of proposed bills in state legislatures which are designed to censor specific curricular resources from being used for instruction in K-12 schools. These bills are modeled on a similar U.S. House Bill, H.R.8282 , and U.S. Senate Bill, S.4292, both titled the “Saving American History Act of 2020,” which did not advance in the 116th Congress. These bills, similar to those in the U.S. Congress, prohibit funds from being used to teach the 1619 Project, and cut funding to schools which do not abide by this directive.

• Arkansas: House Bill 1231 , “An Act Creating the Saving American History Act of 2021; to Prohibit the Use of Public School Funds to Teach the 1619 Project Curriculum; To Reduce Funds Distributed to Public Schools that Teach the 1619 Project Curriculum; and for Other Purposes.” (Arkansas Council for the Social Studies’ response to this bill).
• Iowa: House File 222 , “An Act Providing for the Reduction of Certain Funding and Budgets for Public Schools, Community Colleges, and Regents Institutions Following the Use of Specified Curriculum and Including Effective Date and Applicability Provisions.”

A similar bill introduced in Mississippi—Senate Bill 2538, “Saving American History in Mississippi Schools Act of 2020—died in committee on February 2, 2021. 
 

As NCSS stated previously in its response, Teaching About Slavery Using the 1619 Project and Other Resources, we resoundingly reject any effort by the federal government to silence social studies curriculum that explicitly addresses the centrality of slavery in the historical narrative of the United States. We extend that rejection to any effort that similarly silences such social studies curriculum and interferes with the professional and moral obligations of all educators to prepare all students for college, career, and civic life. Most specifically, NCSS strongly defends the academic freedom of social studies educators to make sound curricular decisions and accurately select the instructional resources best suited to achieve their learning standards, meet their curriculum expectations, and support student learning outcomes through their professional practice and judgment.

Our nation continues to grapple with a brutal pandemic that has wreaked havoc on students, educators, schools, and communities. Rather than spend precious time debating whether to cut funding for K-12 schools based on their selection of curriculum resources, elected officials should instead focus on how to fund schools appropriately so that they can re-open safely and provide access to social studies instruction every day in every grade. Instead of proposals to eliminate funds where they are urgently needed, we need proposals that support increased and equitable access to resources and professional respect for all social studies educators to make instructional decisions they are best equipped to make. In addition to affirming our view that curriculum resources like the 1619 Project should be used at the discretion of professional educators, not by the dictate of elected officials, NCSS urges all elected officials to focus on what more they can provide to all schools in this continued pandemic crisis—not what they can take away from our schools. NCSS calls for the continued and rightful selection of curriculum resources at the school and district level, instead of within the state legislature.

NCSS has focused attention on the marginalization of social studies in the K-12 school program for many years. This marginalization is especially visible in our elementary schools, where the foundations of civic learning and historical thinking are first made, and where the current widespread absence of social studies, and more specifically history , instruction has proven to cause deficits in reading comprehension and general knowledge. The widespread effects of cutting social studies learning—rather than investing in social studies learning--continue to be clear and tragic for all students.

If we really want to “save American history,” we should address the marginalization of social studies, and why instructional time for history and social studies learning has declined so rapidly in the 21st century—especially at the elementary level. If our nation wishes to “save American history,” then it needs to start by prioritizing American history instruction—and all social studies instruction—every day in the school schedule. America will not realize its goal of preparing all students for civic life by taking away what few resources our schools have to achieve this goal.