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Changes in history curriculum drawing opposition Saturday, Jul 14, 2007 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Arkansas' new social studies curriculum will not give short shrift to Arkansas history instruction in public schools, as some historian have suggested, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education said Friday. The department has received several e-mails recently from "people who are worried that we're trying to take Arkansas history out of the curriculum, and that is not the case at all," spokeswoman Julie Thompson said. She said one of the goals of a committee of educators that met in 2006 to develop the new social studies curriculum was to actually strengthen the teaching of Arkansas history in the elementary schools. The 34-member committee recommended adding Arkansas history to the social studies curriculum in elementary school because as a separate course it was generally being only taught in middle school. The shift did not change a 1997 law requiring students to receive a year of Arkansas history in middle school or high school, she said. "There is a misunderstanding on this," Thompson said. "Because Arkansas history is no longer separate ... some think it's being watered down and it's not." However, Jeannie Whayne, chair of the University of Arkansas' Department of History, on Friday called the proposal "hostile to Arkansas history." "They say they 'choose to integrate student learning expectations for Arkansas history into the broader social studies framework,'" Whayne said reading from a Department of Education news release, "which, of course, means to me that they are watering it down to nothing." Some school districts may decide to teach world history before Arkansas history in high school, but that would a local decision, Thompson said. Whayne, a member of the Arkansas History Education Coalition, which has expressed concern about the new curriculum, also said high school students taking Arkansas history would have no textbooks, except those previously used to teach seventh-graders. The coalition planned a news conference today in Little Rock to outline its concerns and Tom Dillard, leader of the coalition, is scheduled to meet with state Education Commissioner Ken James on Thursday to discuss the new curriculum. |
