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North Carolina's Real History Reform: "History did not begin in 1877!"

North Carolina’s Accountability and Curriculum Reform Effort (ACRE) has proposed a curriculum that eliminates teaching U. S. History before 1877 as a required subject in public high schools. We are citizens, educators and students against North Carolina’s proposed new U.S. History Curriculum....

The purpose of this website is to educate our fellow North Carolinians about the proposed changes in the state’s History Curriculum and to generate sufficient public support to make sure that U.S. History as a whole is taught in North Carolina high schools, over at least a full year (not just one block semester.) We also support teaching World History in its current form, as opposed to shifting the focus to “World Studies” and only teaching events after 1945.

On a broader level, we seek to protect the teaching of history and social studies in our schools in the face of increasing pressure to focus only on subjects that are tested and on “teaching to the test.” The intense focus on accountability and testing in schools over the past decade has had some negative consequences, such that students spend half as much time studying history/social studies as they did a decade ago.

Other humanities, such as art, music, and literature, have also been pushed aside. While accountability is necessary, too much emphasis on multiple choice testing limits not only creativity, but real learning, and excessively narrows the curriculum.
Read entire article at realhistoryreform.org