Tag: curriculum

Lessons for Today from a Landmark New Jersey Desegregation Case

Lessons for Today from a Landmark New Jersey Desegregation Case

By Lamont Repollet

Education has the potential to be the great equalizer that truly changes the trajectory of people’s lives. The struggle to realize that potential has a long history here in New Jersey. Looking back, we know Black activists were demanding civil rights reform in education here in the Garden State more than a decade before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregated public schools across the nation in 1954. Concerted efforts by the NAACP, other advocates and mothers weary from discrimination in education led to legal battles that paved the way for changes and pivotal federal legislation. One of the precedent-setting cases that helped the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice, to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was New Jersey’s Hedgepeth and Williams v. Board of Education (1944).

In 1943, two mothers from Trenton, Gladys Hedgepeth and Berline Williams, attempted to enroll their children in a neighborhood middle school. The school, the women were told, wasn’t “built for Negroes.” As a result, they enrolled their children in a Blacks-only school more than two miles away while simultaneously filing lawsuits against the Board of Education of Trenton. Represented by Robert Queen of the NAACP, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled intentional segregation in public schools to be a violation of New Jersey law. Schools in New Jersey would no longer be segregated.

In the courts, the Hedgepath-Williams decision proved to be a precedent on which proponents of desegregation could build the historic case that ended legal racial segregation in schools across the nation, Brown v. Board of Education. In his legal brief for that case, attorney Thurgood Marshall cited the Hedgepeth–Williams decision. Ultimately, racial segregation was deemed unconstitutional -– even if the segregated schools were otherwise equal in quality.

The broader impact of the historic ruling was profound. It resulted in a massive shift in the national landscape of racial justice and the American judicial system as a whole. The next year, New Jersey’s state legislature passed a fair employment practices act, with a fledgling enforcement division, that prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices. The number of Black teachers rose exponentially.

Further racial barrier-breaking developments also occurred. New Jersey’s State Constitution of 1947 codified the desegregation of public schools. In 1949, a civil rights bill in the state banned discrimination in public accommodations. New Jersey became a model for New York and Pennsylvania, and ultimately the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Today, nearly eight decades since the Hedgepeth-Williams ruling laid the groundwork for even more dramatic reforms nationwide, race-based inequalities remain pervasive in our schools. How do we follow in the footsteps of our predecessors and fulfill the mandate secured by trailblazers like Gladys Hedgepeth and Berline Williams? We need to compensate teachers equitably across districts to attract and retain quality candidates of all races to the field, but specifically Black educators. We must offer professional development, research opportunities, and holistic support to new and early-stage educators so they can succeed. Without these resources, we are setting young teachers up for failure before they even begin. When our educators feel whole, their students can be at the top of their game, too.

Furthermore, we cannot underestimate the power and importance of Black students seeing people who look like them in the classroom and in leadership positions across academia. Last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Trenton’s population was nearly 50 percent Black, 37 percent Hispanic and 13 percent white, yet the hiring of teachers of color there and elsewhere is slow to catch up to the diversity of its students. Imagine how much greater our students’ academic achievement will be when more Black educators teach Black children Black history, as well as all of the other subjects they are taught in school. Or how high their standards and visions of self-actualization will soar when students of color see themselves more fully represented in the sciences and research, the arts, business, sports, civil rights and in positions of leadership in these fields and others.

It’s also high time we invest more in higher education. We must continue to demand funding and resource allocations for our schools and universities, particularly prioritizing underserved communities. From pre-K through college and into graduate school, we must find and reach the undiscovered brilliant minds, the dreamers, the entrepreneurs, the leaders who are right there in our midst waiting to be put on an educational path that lets them become their full selves. Education is a pathway to upward mobility. It is a way for students to break free from the cycle of poverty and oppression in order to achieve their dreams. When we invest in equal education for all, we are building a stronger future for all of us.

In God’s eyes, we are created equal. However, history and current events remind us that we are not all treated equally. Everyone hears a lot about self-determination and being the architect of their own future. That’s easy to say when you are born into privilege and opportunity. It is a much more difficult proposition for anyone facing racism, systemic negligence and prejudice throughout their lives. We as a community cannot ignore the disadvantages that hold so many of our people back. Instead, we must leverage our positions as educators to create programs and deliver resources that will make a difference in students’ lives. Like the activists of today and decades past, we must work relentlessly to make sure that governments and systems of education do their part. Hedgepeth and Williams v. Board of Education is a call to equity in action as much now as it was in 1944, and we must rededicate ourselves to its moral imperative.

Rethinking Holocaust Education

Rethinking Holocaust Education

By Ari Mandel

Holocaust education occupies a paradoxical position in modern classrooms. It is one of the most widely taught subjects in social studies and history curricula in secondary schools and colleges, appearing in textbooks, museums, films, and commemorative programs across the world. Yet widespread exposure has not necessarily produced deeper historical understanding. Many students leave these lessons with strong impressions but only a limited grasp of the broader historical context, and of the historical forces that produced the Holocaust. In some cases, repeated exposure can even produce a kind of numbness in which the subject loses the weight it should carry.

The problem is clearly not a lack of exposure, but the way the history is framed and taught. Efforts to extract blunt moral lessons from the Holocaust may be well intentioned, but they risk reducing a complex historical catastrophe to a simplified parable. When history becomes primarily a vehicle for moral messaging, students may disengage or fail to grapple with the deeper questions the event raises.

Effective Holocaust education therefore requires a shift from quantity to quality. Instruction should prioritize historical context, careful analysis of evidence, and deep engagement with the social and political forces that made the genocide possible. Teaching the Holocaust as serious history allows students not only to understand the event itself, but also to examine how genocide develops, compare it with other episodes of mass violence, and evaluate contemporary issues with greater historical awareness.

Visibility Without Understanding

Despite its prominence in school curricula, Holocaust education often produces uneven results. Research and classroom experience suggest that many students retain only a fragmented grasp of the subject. They may recognize familiar symbols such as Auschwitz, Hitler, and concentration camps without understanding the broader context that made the genocide possible. Chronology is often unclear, the ideological foundations of Nazism are poorly understood, and the political and social mechanisms that enabled the Holocaust frequently remain unexplored.

Part of the difficulty lies in how instruction is structured. Lessons often prioritize emotional engagement over analysis. Graphic imagery, survivor testimony, and powerful narratives can leave lasting impressions, but without careful contextualization they may produce reactions without deeper comprehension. Students may remember what they saw or felt without understanding how or why events unfolded.

In some cases, the sheer volume of Holocaust imagery and storytelling has the opposite effect. Rather than strengthening engagement, repeated exposure can create a form of desensitization in which the subject becomes familiar but intellectually distant. Some historians have called this “Holocaust fatigue.” When it occurs, the Holocaust risks becoming just another tragedy rather than a historically specific event shaped by identifiable causes and decisions.

These patterns suggest that more exposure is not necessarily better. Depth of instruction matters more than frequency. A smaller number of carefully structured lessons that emphasize context, evidence, and inquiry may prove more effective than repeated encounters with sanitized and decontextualized narratives. Examined as a complex historical process shaped by ideology, political decisions, bureaucratic structures, and social participation, the Holocaust becomes far more intelligible.

The Problem with Moral Slogans

Attempts to extract blunt moral lessons from the Holocaust often produce the opposite of the intended effect. Teachers understandably want students to leave with a clear ethical message. Yet when the event is reduced to slogans about tolerance or bullying, its complexity disappears. Such framing turns a vast historical catastrophe into a simple moral parable and often produces indifference rather than engagement. More importantly, this framing allows students to distance themselves too easily. If the lesson is that Nazis were uniquely evil, students can reassure themselves that they are nothing like the perpetrators. As long as they are not committing atrocities, the history appears irrelevant. Modern Holocaust scholarship challenges this assumption. The individuals who carried out the Holocaust were not monsters drawn from some separate category of humanity. Most were ordinary people who lived ordinary lives, saw themselves as respectable, and participated in a system that persecuted and murdered millions.

Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Kelley was a United States Army Military Intelligence Corps officer who served as chief psychiatrist at Nuremberg Prison prior to the post-World War II trial of leading Nazis. Kelley examined 22 high ranking officials of the Nazi party, including Hitler’s second-in-command Hermann Goring and his deputy Rudolf Hess to determine whether they were insane and predict if they would suffer a breakdown before and during their trial. In his book, 22 Cells in Nuremberg. A Psychiatrist Examines the Nazi Criminals (London: W. H. Allen, 1947) published after the trial, Kelley argued the defendants did not represent a specifically Nazi pathology, but that “they were simply creatures of their environment, as all humans are.” He believed that under similar circumstances, other people, including Americans might act in the same way. Kelley’s work with the Nazi prisoners is at the core of the recent movie Nuremberg.

Reaching similar conclusions, Hannah Arendt famously described this as the “banality of evil.” Observing Adolf Eichmann’s trial, she argued that genocide was often carried out not by fanatics but by individuals who were disturbingly normal. Eichmann presented himself as a bureaucrat who had simply performed his duties. While controversial, her argument forced historians to confront an unsettling reality: the Holocaust depended not only on ideology but on widespread participation.

Subsequent research reinforced this point. Stanley Milgram’s experiments demonstrated how ordinary individuals could be persuaded to harm others. Christopher Browning’s book Ordinary Men showed how middle-aged reservists, with little prior ideological commitment, became participants in mass murder through a mixture of obedience, peer pressure, and gradual moral accommodation.

Another crucial dimension concerns bystanders. Many people did not directly participate in violence, yet they witnessed persecution and chose not to intervene. Neighbors watched families disappear. Railway workers transported deportees. Civil servants processed the machinery of persecution. Their inaction helped sustain the system. For students, this category is often the most relevant. Few imagine themselves as perpetrators, and many hope they would be rescuers. In reality, most people occupy the space in between.

For Holocaust education, these insights are essential. The goal is not simply to label Nazis as evil, but to examine the social and psychological processes that made participation possible. Violence rarely begins with a single decision. It develops through smaller choices, compromises, and acts of conformity until the unthinkable becomes normalized. Taught this way, the Holocaust becomes not a distant moral fable but a deeply human and troubling historical process.

This approach also shifts the focus from abstract judgment to historical inquiry. Instead of asking whether people in the past were good or evil, students are encouraged to examine how ordinary individuals understood their actions, how institutions shaped behavior, and how social pressures influenced decision making. These questions do not excuse participation in violence, but they make it possible to understand how such participation occurs. In doing so, they bring the history closer to students’ own world, where moral choices are rarely presented in clear or dramatic terms.

What Students Never Learn: Jewish Life Before the Holocaust

Holocaust education often begins with persecution and ends with genocide. While these topics are essential, this framing creates a distorted picture of Jewish history. This problem is compounded by the fact that, for many students, Holocaust lessons may be their first real exposure to Jews or Judaism. Without prior knowledge or personal connection, their initial encounter may come through the lens of Nazi ideology itself. Students are often shown antisemitic caricatures to illustrate prejudice. These materials are important historical evidence, but without a broader context they can unintentionally reinforce the distortions they were meant to expose. With little else to draw on, students may come to understand Jews primarily through the representations created by their persecutors.

Before the Holocaust, Jewish communities across Europe were longstanding and integral parts of the social, cultural, and economic life of many cities and towns. Their traditions had evolved over millennia and supported vibrant intellectual, artistic, and political cultures. Jewish merchants, professionals, writers, musicians, and scholars played visible roles in the life of cities from Moscow to Paris. Political movements ranged from religious traditionalism to socialism and liberalism. Yiddish literature and theater flourished, and newspapers, schools, and community institutions shaped daily life across thousands of communities. This world was not defined solely by persecution. It was a living civilization with its own language, debates, and cultural achievements.

Understanding this world is essential to grasping the magnitude of the Holocaust. The destruction of European Jewry was not only the murder of millions but also the destruction of communities and traditions that had developed over generations. Without this context, students cannot fully understand what was destroyed.

Teaching Jewish life before the Holocaust corrects a deeper distortion. Jewish history is often presented as a sequence of persecutions culminating in genocide, reducing a complex civilization to a narrative of suffering. While antisemitism is part of that history, education should also present the richness of Jewish life that existed long before the Nazis attempted to eradicate it and that ultimately survived their attempt. Too often, students encounter Jews only as victims rather than as participants in a long and complex civilization.

This broader perspective has an additional benefit. When students encounter Jewish life as a living culture, they are better able to recognize the gap between antisemitic stereotypes and historical reality. In this sense, teaching Jewish life before the Holocaust is not a diversion but a necessary foundation for understanding it.

Why Holocaust Education Matters Now

Holocaust education matters not only because of the historical significance of the event itself, but also because the patterns that made it possible continue to appear in other contexts. Antisemitism has often flourished during periods of political instability, economic stress, or cultural anxiety. When individuals or communities explain difficult conditions by blaming vulnerable groups, it reflects a deeper failure to confront underlying problems and often leads to consequences that extend far beyond the targeted minority. In such moments, scapegoating replaces serious engagement with complex realities.

Crises have repeatedly produced movements that seek simple explanations for complex conditions. Economic hardship and rapid social change can generate narratives that attribute national decline to hidden enemies or internal betrayal. In these environments, conspiracy thinking takes hold and blame is redirected outward. Antisemitism has long provided one of the most persistent frameworks for this kind of explanation.

Teaching the Holocaust provides an opportunity to examine how such narratives develop and gain influence. Nazi ideology did not emerge in a vacuum. It drew on long standing traditions of antisemitism, racial theories, and conspiracy myths circulating across Europe, shaped in part by the political and economic crises that followed the first World War. Studied in context, these ideas reveal how prejudice becomes institutionalized and how conspiracy thinking can be translated into policy.

Holocaust education also encourages students to distinguish between different forms of mass violence. Genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity are related but distinct. Examining these categories allows for more precise analysis and comparison without diminishing the Holocaust.

In this sense, Holocaust education serves an important civic function. Students learn how propaganda reshapes public opinion, how institutions become instruments of persecution, and how narratives of blame take hold. The goal is not to draw simplistic parallels, but to equip students with the tools to recognize dangerous patterns.

Understanding the Holocaust therefore requires more than memorization. It requires examining how prejudice becomes normalized, how conspiracy thinking spreads, and how societies respond to crisis by directing anger toward vulnerable groups. When approached this way, Holocaust education becomes not only an exercise in remembrance but a framework for understanding how societies can descend into exclusion and violence.

Conclusion

Teaching the Holocaust presents educators with a difficult but essential responsibility. The challenge is not simply to present the facts, but to ensure that students understand the processes that made the genocide possible. Holocaust education can easily fall into repetition, emotional overload, or simplified moral messaging that leaves students with impressions but little analysis.

A more effective approach places historical inquiry at the center. Students should examine the ideological roots of antisemitism, the political and economic conditions that allowed extremism to flourish, and the structures that enabled genocide. This includes attention to the broader context in which Nazism emerged, including the aftermath of the First World War and the crises that followed. They should also confront the role of ordinary individuals, bystanders, and incremental choices in shaping events.

Equally important is situating the Holocaust within the broader history of Jewish life. The destruction of European Jewry cannot be understood solely through persecution. Without that context, the scale of the loss is diminished.

Ultimately, the purpose of Holocaust education is not only remembrance but understanding. Teaching the Holocaust as serious history allows students to grapple with the complexities of human behavior and the fragility of modern societies. It equips them to recognize patterns of scapegoating, conspiracy thinking, and political extremism before they escalate into something far more dangerous.

Remarks by German Chancellor Merkel, U.S. President Obama, and Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Source: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-german-chancellor-merkel-and-elie-wiesel-buchenwald-concent

In June 2009, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, United States President Barack Obama, and Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel spoke at a memorial service at the Buchenwald Concentration camp near Weimar, Germany. Wiesel was fifteen years old when he was imprisoned by the Nazis, first at Auschwitz, and then at Buchenwald These are excerpts from their speeches.

CHANCELLOR MERKEL: “Unimaginable horror, shock — there are no words to adequately describe what we feel when we look at the suffering inflicted so cruelly upon so many people here and in other concentration and extermination camps under National Socialist terror. I bow my head before the victims. We, the Germans, are faced with the agonizing question how and why — how could this happen? How could Germany wreak such havoc in Europe and the world? It is therefore incumbent upon us Germans to show an unshakeable resolve to do everything we can so that something like this never happens again.

On the 25th of January, the presidents of the associations of former inmates at the concentration camps presented their request to the public, and this request closes with the following words: “The last eyewitness appeal to Germany, to all European states, and to the international community to continue preserving and honoring the human gift of remembrance and commemoration into the future. We ask young people to carry on our struggle against Nazi ideology, and for a just, peaceful and tolerant world; a world that has no place for anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, and right-wing extremism.”

This appeal of the survivors clearly defines the very special responsibility we Germans have to shoulder with regard to our history. And for me, therefore, there are three messages that are important today. First, let me emphasize, we Germans see it as past of our country’s raison d’être to keep the everlasting memory alive of the break with civilization that was the Shoah. Only in this way will we be able to shape our future. I am therefore very grateful that the Buchenwald memorial has always placed great emphasis on the dialogue with younger people, to conversations with eyewitnesses, to documentation, and a broad-based educational program. Second, it is most important to keep the memory of the great sacrifices alive that had to be made to put an end to the terror of National Socialism and to liberate its victims and to rid all people of its yoke . . .

Third, here in Buchenwald I would like to highlight an obligation placed on us Germans as a consequence of our past: to stand up for human rights, to stand up for rule of law, and for democracy. We shall fight against terror, extremism, and anti-Semitism. And in the awareness of our responsibility we shall strive for peace and freedom, together with our friends and partners in the United States and all over the world.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “More than half a century later, our grief and our outrage over what happened have not diminished. I will not forget what I’ve seen here today. I’ve known about this place since I was a boy, hearing stories about my great uncle, who was a very young man serving in World War II. He was part of the 89th Infantry Division, the first Americans to reach a concentration camp. They liberated Ohrdruf, one of Buchenwald’s sub-camps. … He returned from his service in a state of shock saying little and isolating himself for months on end from family and friends, alone with the painful memories that would not leave his head. And as we see — as we saw some of the images here, it’s understandable that someone who witnessed what had taken place here would be in a state of shock.

My great uncle’s commander, General Eisenhower, understood this impulse to silence. He had seen the piles of bodies and starving survivors and deplorable conditions that the American soldiers found when they arrived, and he knew that those who witnessed these things might be too stunned to speak about them or be able — be unable to find the words to describe them; that they might be rendered mute in the way my great uncle had. And he knew that what had happened here was so unthinkable that after the bodies had been taken away, that perhaps no one would believe it. And that’s why he ordered American troops and Germans from the nearby town to tour the camp. He invited congressmen and journalists to bear witness and ordered photographs and films to be made. And he insisted on viewing every corner of these camps so that — and I quote — he could “be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever in the future there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to propaganda.”

We are here today because we know this work is not yet finished. To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened — a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful. This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts; a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history. Also to this day, there are those who perpetuate every form of intolerance — racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and more — hatred that degrades its victims and diminishes us all. In this century, we’ve seen genocide. We’ve seen mass graves and the ashes of villages burned to the ground; children used as soldiers and rape used as a weapon of war. This places teaches us that we must be ever vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others’ suffering is not our problem and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests . . .

When the American GIs arrived they were astonished to find more than 900 children still alive, and the youngest was just three years old. And I’m told that a couple of the prisoners even wrote a Buchenwald song that many here sang. Among the lyrics were these: “…whatever our fate, we will say yes to life, for the day will come when we are free…in our blood we carry the will to live and in our hearts, in our hearts — faith.”

ELIE WIESEL: “As I came here today it was actually a way of coming and visiting my father’s grave – but he had no grave. His grave is somewhere in the sky. This has become in those years the largest cemetery of the Jewish people. The day he died was one of the darkest in my life. He became sick, weak, and I was there. I was there when he suffered. I was there when he asked for help, for water. I was there to receive his last words. But I was not there when he called for me, although we were in the same block; he on the upper bed and I on the lower bed. He called my name, and I was too afraid to move. All of us were. And then he died. I was there, but I was not there. And I thought one day I will come back and speak to him, and tell him of the world that has become mine. I speak to him of times in which memory has become a sacred duty of all people of good will . . .

What can I tell him that the world has learned?

When I was liberated in 1945, April 11, by the American army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned – that never again will there be war; that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid; and the will to conquer other people’s minds or territories or aspirations, that will is meaningless . .

But again, the world hasn’t. Had the world learned, there would have been no Cambodia and no Rwanda and no Darfur and no Bosnia. Will the world ever learn? I think that is why Buchenwald is so important – as important, of course, but differently as Auschwitz. It’s important because here the large – the big camp was a kind of international community. People came there from all horizons –

 political, economic, culture. The first globalization essay, experiment, were made in Buchenwald. And all that was meant to diminish the humanity of human beings . . .

Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart. Memories here not to sow anger in our hearts, but on the contrary, a sense of solidarity that all those who need us. What else can we do except invoke that memory so that people everywhere who say the 21st century is a century of new beginnings, filled with promise and infinite hope, and at times profound gratitude to all those who believe in our task, which is to improve the human condition.

Cultivating Virtues and Reasoning about the Common Good

Cultivating Virtues and Reasoning about the Common Good

Roshni U. Patel

            Before we delve into the realm of the common good, let us begin by looking at the overall matter of the common good. To promote the common good, individual interests need to be pushed aside for the well-being of society to create a more positive community. Michael J. Sandal’s literature expresses many concepts of the common good, society, and community. In order to get a sense of the common good we “…must find a way to cultivate in citizens a concern for the whole” rather than following individualism.[1] This leads us to the matter that more and more Americans move to gated communities and begin sending their children to private and boarding schools which defeats the purpose of the common good. These gated communities where the HOA (homeowners association) fees are ridiculously high, feature brand new and private amenities such as gyms, pools, parks, playgrounds, and literal gates to prevent outsiders from coming in. Some gated communities will have two security checkpoints and even a guard to make sure only residents of the community are entering. The need for “public” housing (I use quotes because it is open to anyone) is no longer desired as it used to be.

Homeowners used to crave land, yard space, and stand-alone houses with their own home gyms and pools but the craving has gone to housing communities. The desire to be in a gated community, with all these great amenities, has increased leaving more of these communities being built and nature destroyed. As for private and boarding schools, parents feel that their children need to be seeking a greater education when public schools can offer just that. Private schools can lead to diversity disasters and create social division and inequality.

Michael Sandel wrote a book titled Justice: What’s The Right Thing to Do? about three approaches to justice. Along with Sandel, I too agree with the third approach, “…justice involves cultivating virtue and reasoning about the common good,” nevertheless justice also includes freedom of choice and independence.[2] If people want to feel an extra sense of safety by living in a gated community, it is up to the homeowner but what is stopping someone from jumping the fence? Along with homeownership, families are moving to more affluent areas with great school districts to benefit themselves and their children or paying additional costs to send their children to private and boarding schools. Again, the common good focuses on community but at what cost if people are following the idea of individualism?

Public facilities such as pools, recreation centers, parks, libraries, and more would “…draw people out of their gated communities and into the common spaces” creating the sense of community that everyone was looking for.[3] Now, “The affluent send their children to private schools (or to public schools in wealthy suburbs), leaving urban public schools to the children of families who have no alternative. A similar trend leads to the secession by the privileged from other public institutions and facilities. Private health clubs replace municipal recreation centers and swimming pools. Upscale residential communities hire private security guards and rely less on public police protection. A second or third car removes the need to rely on public transportation. And so on. The affluent secede from public places and services leaving them to those who can’t afford anything else”.[4] It is as if the working class is left with leftovers and even less. Gated communities have created a space for the affluent to have no reason to leave unless they absolutely need to because of all the provided amenities.

Taking a look at private education, it is the root of many problems. Even though these private institutions are trying to work on solutions for racial, socioeconomic, and educational diversity and inequality, many schools still face a lack of diversity. Post-secondary education and even graduate schools face the issues of diversity. In the past, diversity rarely included race and ethnicity, it was mostly “…students from California, New York, and Massachusetts; city dwellers and farm boys; violinists, painters and football players; biologists, historians and classicists; potential stockbrokers, academics, and politicians,” it never included the physical and economic attributes of people.[5] Taking racial and ethnic backgrounds into consideration, students of color and ethnic diversity can bring what Caucasians and Whites can’t, which is diversity. When students share their experiences the audience can learn from others making an educational difference. Sharing stories from their past from cultures to religion, can educate others and create a more safe and comfortable environment.

Oral history is so powerful. Stories from the past are being preserved and told in a certain tone that impacts the audience making it stronger than reading text. Having students from all backgrounds can cultivate an enriching learning environment where everyone is learning the oral history of others which can also benefit them. These oral histories can prevent the audience from making mistakes made in the past, thus creating a learning and teaching moment.

Socioeconomic status has always been a barrier for children attending private institutions at all levels, leading to a lack of awareness of the different levels and situations people are in. Schools like Lawrenceville School require a tuition of seventy thousand dollars a year and for the average American, that is a yearly salary. If those who are sending their children to these exclusive schools are not going to be exposed to the variety of socioeconomic statuses that exist, and will only be mindful of their own. Having the privilege of attending a college preparatory school is not an option for everyone creating educational disparities. Some schools are trying to create more equal opportunities but that is not the case for everyone. A school in Texas named The Tenney School released a statement from the headmaster saying “The single biggest factor impacting diversity in private schools is tuition…it is very difficult to find diverse families who can afford private tuition…private schools do attempt to attract diverse students through scholarship programs, but at the end of the day, there will be some tuition to attend a private school,” meaning some type of tuition is always going to be on the invoice which only certain, most likely White, families can pay.[6]

College preparatory schools set children up for their future with a more advanced education that is catered to each child. Comparing this to a standard public school that is built around standards for the general population, these private schools give children a huge advantage when it comes to colleges and universities because of the institutions’ status, thus setting up the privately educated child to become successful in the future. Think of this like a chain of effects. If the parents make loads of money, they will live in a privileged area leaving them with two options; option one is to send the child to a very nice public school with everything that is possibly needed or send that child to a private school with everything and more. If option two is picked, the child will receive an education that is meant specifically for them, a higher chance of getting to an Ivy or public Ivy university, and lastly, a greater chance of a successful career and high salary. This chain of events will continue to this family’s future children and a never-ending cycle of private school privilege. From personal experience, where I went to school (South Brunswick, NJ), by the time some of my classmates reached sixth grade, they attended private schools, and for ninth grade, some went to boarding schools. Why? Because their parents felt that a private school would be needed to make their children more successful because of the advantages. The inequality margin is getting larger and larger every day because of the number of children attending private schools.

As I said previously, the common good is an independent choice, but why remove the concept when some are in need? Sandel agrees with his third reasoning for justice, “cultivating virtue and reasoning about the common good,” but the United States no longer fosters the same opinion.[7] Many in the US are fostering a more greedy mentality through actions like living in a gated community or sending their children to private schools. There is no longer a need for public facilities, but they can enhance the sense of community and create a place of belonging for children. Those who do not have access to private facilities could be going to public ones but that isn’t an option because the common good wasn’t kept up with and a fee is included with everything. An example of this would be the local dog park. In order to access, a high fee must be paid, but if you are not a resident of the town, you must pay an even higher one. Why have a park if you have to pay for it? The answer is easy. Greed. Towns need money and the only way to make it is through fees and payments. America needs to adopt a mentality that makes us think about others, not just ourselves. The only way we can better society is through working together but that is not possible if people are only looking out for themselves and how they can make it more luxurious.

Encouraging people to attend public schools and buy stand-alone housing not in gated communities is a start to increasing the sense of community and common good, but again, it is a choice and people have the freedom to do as they please. Taking that away from families is simply wrong, however, they should be aware of their actions and the consequences. Making the private school sector more available to all classes and providing information about the community can make everyone more aware. In gated communities, removing the facilities can increase families leaving and going to public ones, leading to fostering friendships and relationships with others. Asking the American people to do this after gated communities and private institutions are embedded in our society is a lot but the difference that can be made is even greater. I agree with Sandel and the concept of the common good, but asking the American people to believe in this when everyone has different values will be difficult, maybe even impossible.

Applying to Social Studies Education

            Social Studies is such a broad subject where students learn about the various cultures, races, ethnicities, and so on. It is one of the only core subjects taught in schools where students can take the time and learn from each other. They can tell personal stories, explain their cultures and traditions, and most importantly, listen to each other. My paper above is about the common good, one of the goods being public education. Private institutions take away the learning opportunities that public schools have to offer. At these institutions, there is one kind of group of kids: those of a higher socioeconomic status. With that being said, many of these kids are White. There is no opportunity to learn about various backgrounds and ethnicities. With my experience in public schools, I learned so much about different cultures and people. It really influenced me to think deeper about what other hardships people face in their lives. While I don’t have first-hand experienced life in a private school, I can speak on behalf of the many people I know who attend private institutions for their K-12 education. It is so simple, it’s not diverse.

            In order for students to be knowledgeable about the problems in this world, it is crucial they take the time to understand and learn from others. One student does not have the same life as another. Although they will never truly know what others have experienced, discussion is a great place to start. In high school, I took a sociology class that changed my perspective on life in general. We would discuss our backgrounds, cultural traditions, and  our family and family life. This class allowed me to learn what true diversity is, in turn, making me want to expose my future students to each other. Not enough credit goes out to students. They are not only listeners but they are teachers. They teach what teachers can’t, cultures and traditions. We can only talk about what we know but it is more personal when it comes from a true place and narrator. There is nothing more valuable than students sharing their experiences with their classmates, it builds a community.

[1] Michael J Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

[2] Michael J Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

[3] Michael J Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

[4] Michael J Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

[5]  Michael J Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

[6] Is there a lack of diversity in private schools?, accessed May 13, 2024, https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/articles/is-there-a-lack-of-diversity-in-private-schools.

[7]   Michael J Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

Era 13 Postwar United States: Civil Unrest and Social Change

New Jersey Council for the Social Studies

www.njcss.org

Engaging High School Students in Global Civic Education Lessons in U.S. History

The relationship between the individual and the state is present in every country, society, and civilization. Relevant questions about individual liberty, civic engagement, government authority, equality and justice, and protection are important for every demographic group in the population.  In your teaching of World History, consider the examples and questions provided below that should be familiar to students in the history of the United States with application to the experiences of others around the world.

These civic activities are designed to present civics in a global context as civic education happens in every country.  The design is flexible regarding using one of the activities, allowing students to explore multiple activities in groups, and as a lesson for a substitute teacher. The lessons are free, although a donation to the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies is greatly appreciated. www.njcss.org

Era 13 Postwar United States: Civil Rights and Social Change (1945 to early 1970s)

The postwar era marked the rise of America as a world power. The new world order established alliance and economic agreements that have led to unprecedented economic growth. However, this period also marks divisions between countries with democratic institutions, authoritarian governments following the ideology of Marxist communism, and developing countries with issues of poverty, disease, debt, and human rights abuses. The United States faced issues or racial segregation, a shrinking middle class, and the expansion of costly federal government programs and a large defense budget causing its national debt to increase. Technology and the media influenced social changes.

Activity #1: Federalism: Dixiecrats in the United States and the Swiss Cantons

Dixiecrats and the Authority of State Government in the United States

The principle of federalism is valued in the way the people of the United States govern themselves. There is a fine line between the division of powers between the states and the national government. The Tenth Amendment specifically protects the powers of the 50 states, and the Ninth Amendment protects the powers of individual citizens.  The powers of the national government are carefully defined and limited.

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” (Ninth Amendment)

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (Tenth Amendment)

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” (Article 2, Section 2)

“He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.” (Article 2, Section 3)

The Dixiecrats perceived the legislation passed by the national government (Congress and President Truman) to integrate American society as a threat to their liberty and authority as independent states. In the 1948 presidential election, Southern Democrats walked out of the Democratic National Convention because they disagreed with its civil rights platform. They formed a new political party with South Carolina’s Governor Strom Thurmond as their party’s presidential nominee. Their objective was to deny or ‘nullify’ laws passed by the national government to integrate schools and modes of transportation. Individual states wanted to continue with the 1896 “separate but equal” decision from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. 

In 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law, the Alien and Sedition Acts. The acts outraged Thomas Jefferson and Kentucky declared the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional and “altogether void and of no force” in the state of Kentucky.

Kentucky held that our Constitution was a “compact” among the states that delegated a set of limited powers to the federal government. This meant that “every state” had the power to “nullify of their own authority” any violation of the Constitution. In 1832, South Carolina declared the Tariff of 1832 was unconstitutional, “null, void, and no law” because they disproportionately burdened southern states.

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” (Article 6)

Switzerland’s Government

Switzerland is governed under a federal system at three levels: the Confederation, the 26 cantons and the 2,131 communes. The Swiss Confederation of States and its current boundaries were agreed to in 1815 and its current constitution was adopted in 1848. Switzerland has a direct democracy with citizens voting on decisions at all political levels. Switzerland is governed by the Federal Council of seven members representing the different political parties and are elected by the two-house assembly or parliament. whose decisions are made by consensus. Switzerland has a two-house assembly, the National Council is the lower house and represents the people. The upper house is the Council of States and represents the individual cantons. Switzerland also has ten political parties. The powers of cantons include education, culture, healthcare, welfare, law enforcement, taxation, and voting. Cantons have their own constitutions, parliaments, and courts, which are aligned with the federal constitution. 

An example of a conflict in Switzerland that challenged the authority of the individual cantons is the city of Moutier with a population of 7,500 in the canton of Bern. Since 1957, the Moutier committee wanted to secede from the canton of Bern and join the canton of Jura. The majority of people in Bern have voted to keep Moutier within its jurisdiction.  Four out of the seven Jura districts narrowly rejected forming a new district. The three northern, majority Roman Catholic, districts voted in favor of a new district.

Since 2013, there have been peaceful protests and at times vandalism. The people of Moutier voted to join the Jura canton making it the second largest town in the canton of Jura. Although a majority, 51%, of the people voted to join, the government and people of Bern declared their vote to be invalid because some people voted whose residency could not be confirmed. There have been nine referendums in the past 70 years with the population voting to secede and join the Canton of Jura in 2021.  The change to the canton of Jura took effect on January 1, 2026, granting Moutier the right to secede from one canton and join another.

Questions:

  1. Should the national government of the United States be able to enforce common laws for holidays, the economy, schools, transportation, public health, and the environment in all 50 states and territories?
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of the federal system of power between the individual states and the national government in the United States?
  • Does the Swiss government model have any advantages or disadvantages over the structure of government in the United States?
  • What would be the best way to resolve the conflict with the population of Moutier?
  • Will the decision allowing Moutier to secede establish a precedent for future towns or cities to secede in Switzerland?  

Platform of the States Rights Democratic Party, August 14, 1948

Article 1, Section 8: Federalism and the Overall Scope of Federal Power

Keeping the Balance: What a President Can and Cannot Do (Truman Library)

Looking Back: Nullification in American History (National Constitution Center)

Political System of Switzerland

Federalism in Switzerland

Activity #2: Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Canadian Aid to Schools

Education is primarily a state and local responsibility in the United States. About 92% of the money for elementary and secondary education comes from local taxes and money from the individual states. The role of the federal government in education dates back to 1867 when Congress wanted information on teachers and how students learn. Over time this led to land-grant colleges and vocational schools After World War 2, the federal government enacted the “GI Bill” to provide college and vocational education to returning veterans.

In response to the Soviet launch of a satellite, Sputnik, into space in 1957, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act to provide funds for teachers in the areas of mathematics, science, world languages, and area studies to enable us to compete with the Soviet Union. Perhaps the most significant legislation to increase federal funds for schools came in response to the passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s and 1970s and the Great Society programs to reduce poverty. In 1980, Congress established the Department of Education as a position in the president’s Cabinet. In 2025, the Department of Education’s staff and budget was significantly reduced. The Department of Education before 2025 supported 50 million students in 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools. They also provided grants, loans, and work-study programs to 12 million students in colleges and vocational training programs. In addition, they administered $150 billion in loans.

The purpose of federal funds in the United States is to provide equality for disadvantaged students and to improve academic achievement. This is monitored through state assessments based on learning standards. Unfortunately, some states lowered their expectations for student achievement to qualify for the federal funds and the federal government is currently investigating fraud in how federal dollars are being spent.

In the United States, federal funds are designated for after school instruction, English language acquisition, preschools, nutrition, literacy, teaching American history and civics, charter, and  magnet schools.

School Financing in Canada

School funding in Canada is primarily a responsibility of provincial and territorial governments. The federal government contributes money to ensure an equal education for its significant indigenous population. Most funding is from Canada’s 10 provinces. Some provinces provide public funding to private, charter, and religious schools.

The government of Canada views education as a public good from which everyone in society benefits. Education prepares students for jobs, higher education, lowers crime, and reduces poverty. Employers also benefit as educated workers are more productive leading to higher profits for businesses. The only province to fully embrace school choice is Alberta. Canadians fear that school choice may lead wealthier Canadians to benefit from independent, parochial, charter, or magnet schools and this would leave marginalized populations at a disadvantage. Equality and equity are two principles that Canadians value.

According to U.S. News & World Report, the United States is ranked #1 and Canada is ranked #4 in the world in education.

Questions:

  1. Should local communities, states or provinces, or the national government decide the curriculum and funding for public schools?
  2. To what extent should public tax dollars be used to support private or religious schools?
  3. What is the best way to ensure an equal and equitable education for all students?
  4. Should public tax dollars be used for extracurricular activities and sports in schools?
  5. Do you consider education to be a public good that benefits all of society or is it a private good that benefits individual students?
  6. To what extent should public tax dollars be used to support college and vocational education after completing elementary and secondary education?

Elementary and Secondary Education Act

Canada’s Approach to School Funding

Council of Ministers of Education, Canada

Activity #3: Segregation by Race in the United States and by Religion in India

De facto Racial Residential Segregation in the United States

The United States ended racial segregation with the Brown v. Board of Education v. Topeka, Kansas decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, the United States continues to be a place of segregation, not integration. Residential segregation exists through our zip codes and neighborhoods. Although our laws prohibit discrimination, differences in land use policies, wealth and income, contribute to what is called de facto racial residential segregation. Neighborhoods determine the quality of schools, public safety, quality of drinking water, opportunities for employment, strategies of law enforcement, rates of incarceration, and life expectancy.

A study by the University of California (Source) found that more than 80 percent of metropolitan areas were more segregated in 2019 than in 1990. In 2025, the United States government effectively ended support for DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs. Racial residential segregation is difficult to    address when resources are not equally available to all communities. The Kerner Commission wrote in its 1968 report that integration is “the only course which explicitly seeks to achieve a single nation” rather than a dual or permanently divided society.

Table 3: Top 10 Most Segregated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (2019, Minimum 200,000 people)

Segregation  RankMetro
1New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
2Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI
3Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI
4Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI
5Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL
6Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA
7Trenton-Ewing, NJ
8Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, OH
9Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD
10 (tied)Beaumont-Port Arthur, TX
10 (tied)New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA

Religious Segregation in India

India ended the caste system in 1947 and yet many Indians live in religiously segregated areas. One of the reasons for this segregation is that friendship circles are often part of the religious community and marriages are within the same faith community. People in southern India are most likely to live in integrated neighborhoods. Indians with a college degree are more accepting of people from other faiths living in their neighborhoods than those with less education.

Very few Indians say they are married to someone with a different religion. Almost all married people (99%) reported that their spouse shared their religion. This applies to Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists.

Indians generally marry within same religion

Religion, especially members of the Hindu faith, is closely connected with views on politics and national identity. Hindus make up 80% of India’s population. A Pew Research study found that 36% of Hindus would not be willing to live near a Muslim, and 31% say they would not want a Christian living in their neighborhood. Jains are even more likely to express such views:. 54% of people who identify with the Jainist faith would not accept a Muslim as a neighbor, and 47% say the same about Christians. People who identify as Buddhist tend to be the most accepting of people from other faith traditions. Eight-in-ten Buddhists in India say they would accept a Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Sikh or Jain as a neighbor.

Members of both large and small religious groups mostly keep friendships within religious lines

And Indians who live in the Central region of the country are more inclined than people in other regions to say it is very important to stop people from marrying outside of their religion. Among Hindus in the Central region, for instance, 82% say stopping the interreligious marriage of Hindu women is very important, compared with 67% of Hindus nationally. Among Muslims in the region, nearly all (96%) see it as crucial to stop Muslim women from marrying outside the faith, versus 80% of Muslims nationally.

The religious segregation also impacts the quality of education and employment. Muslim student enrollment is dropping. Some states in India are banning religious instruction even though it is protected by the national constitution.

Questions:

  1. Are there common factors (geographic, social, economic, racial, educational, religious, etc.) causing different kinds of segregation in Indian and the United States?
  2. How can countries best establish a social system of equality and integration?
  3. Is segregation present in your school or community?
  4. How do countries/societies unite or define their identity?
  5. Is the problem of segregation about the same, more severe, less severe in India or the United States?

Examples of Government Regulation of Business in the United States

Religious Segregation in India (Pew Research Center)

Activity #4: The Great Society Programs and The Marshall Plan for Europe

The Great Society Program in the United States

In 1965, according to the U.S. Census, the poverty rate in the United States was 13.3%. In 2024, it was 10.6%. However, poverty rates often provide mixed data because of inflation, income levels, race, and age. For examples in 1965 45% of the population in South Carolina was below the poverty line and in 2024 the poverty rate for Hispanic (15%), Black Americans (18.4%), and Native Americans (19.3%) is significantly higher than 10.6%. The definition is further complicated by the difference between absolute poverty (below an income of $31,200 for a four-person household) and relative poverty (the quality of life for people in a neighborhood or community).

Social Security and Medicare are for senior citizens who are eligible at age 65 for Medicare and age 67 for Social Security. There are 83 million people, including children, receiving Medicaid, about 25% of the population. The program is offered by the states and the services provided depend on the state. An average estimate for eligibility is an income that is about 140 percent above the federal poverty level ($30,000 for a family of two in New Jersey, as of 2026). In New Jersey, Medicaid costs about 23% of the state’s budget. Approximately 25% of the residents in New Jesey receive Medicaid at an average cost of $2,600 per enrollee. Amounts vary and are higher for families with children and pregnant women.

According to the Congressional Research Services, mandatory spending was only 30% of the federal budget. Today, it is 60%. Medicare and Medicaid together cost nearly $1 trillion annually. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, are the main contributors to our national debt, which is now over $40 trillion (or roughly $59,000 per citizen). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicare provides health insurance coverage to 68 million Americans. Funding for Medicare is from government contributions, payroll tax revenues, and premiums paid by beneficiaries. Medicare spending is currently about 13.5% of the federal budget or roughly $1.1 trillion. The average cost is $17,000 per enrollee with a $12 billion shortfall in 2023, about $1,300 per enrollee.  The administration of President Trump cut some of the Medicaid programs in 2025 and is negotiating lower prescription drug costs to reduce this shortfall. An aging population and higher health care costs are factors that are expected to continue. Even with these Great Society programs, poverty among the elderly is significantly high. According to USA Today,

“Based on the official measure, which is a simple calculation based on pretax cash income compared with a national threshold, the percentage of seniors in poverty rose to 9.9% last year from 9.7% in 2023, data showed. Using the more comprehensive supplemental measure, which includes noncash government benefits, accounts for taxes and essential expenses like medical care and work-related costs, and adjusts thresholds for regional differences in housing costs, senior poverty rose to 15% from 14.2% − and marked the highest poverty level among all age groups.”

Although these programs are not cost effective and are withdrawing funds from the Trust Fund, they are considered transfer payments because the money is spent at the local and state level which generates income and GDP growth in the economy. They are often referred to as entitlement programs because they were passed by Congress and have been in effect for 90 years (Social Security) and 60 years (Medicaid and Medicare) and revised and expanded over time.

Marshall Plan

In June 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall, announced the U.S. plan to give economic aid to Europe. The offer was made to all of Europe, including the U.S. wartime enemies and the communist countries of Eastern Europe. Sixteen European countries responded by cooperating on a plan that was accepted by the United States. The United States appropriated $13.6 billion (equivalent to $190 billion in 2026 money) was provided. By 1950, the economies of the participating countries returned to their prewar levels.

The Marshall Plan required the countries to stabilize their currency, reduce public spending, import goods from the United States and increase their exports to the United States. There were clear expectations that benefited the economy of the United States. The Marshall Plan established the U.S. as a dominant economic power, promoted open trade and prevented the return of economic depression. It was critical in forming NATO and a closer relationship between the United States and Europe.

Questions:

  1. Given the fact that the Great Society programs of Medicaid and Medicare are not cost effective and that the poverty rate for people over the age of 65 has increased, should the United States continue with these programs?
  2. What should the United States or the individual states do to lower the poverty rate among people over the age of 65?
  3. Does the United States have a legal (constitutional) or moral responsibility to provide supplemental or full health care for its citizens, legal residents, and/or undocumented immigrants?
  4. Was the Marshall Plan worth the investment by the United States?
  5. What factors contributed to the success of the Marshall Plan?
  6. Would a ‘Marshall Plan” to support the rebuilding of a sustainable infrastructure based on renewable energy be effective and accomplish similar outcomes within three to five years?

Tallying the Costs and Benefits of LBJ’s Great Society Programs (American Enterprise Institute)

Estimates of the Costs of Federal Credit Programs (Congressional Budget Office)

Kaiser Family Foundation Reports on Medicare-Medicaid Enrollment and Spending

Marshall Plan (1948) (National Archives)

Marshall Plan and U.S. Economic Dominance (EBSCO)

The Marshall Plan: Design, Accomplishments, and Significance (Congressional Research Service)

Can you Pass the Oklahoma Anti-Woke Test?

Can You Pass the Oklahoma Anti-Woke Teacher’s Test?

Alan Singer, Director, Secondary Education Social Studies
Teaching Learning Technology
284 Hagedorn Hall / 119 Hofstra University / Hempstead, NY 11549
(P) 516-463-5853 (F) 516-463-6196 Bluesky @zaydealan.bsky.social

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/12/31/2360791/-CAN-YOU-PASS-THE-OKLAHOMA-ANTI-WOKE-TEACHER-S-TEST

In August 2025, worried that WOKE educators from higher paying unionized states might move to Oklahoma to take jobs as teachers, Oklahoma implemented an “America-First Assessment” for new teachers. The assessment, created by the PragerU, a conservative group that is definitely not a university, was dropped three months later by a new state education superintendent.

As a WOKE teacher educator from a WOKE state with almost fifty years of teaching experience and indoctrination, I was interested to see if I could pass the “America-First Assessment” and qualify to teach in Oklahoma. But not to worry, it is much easier than the test immigrants take to become United States citizens, the New York State Teacher Certification Exam, and the United States History Regents Exam for 11th grade students in New York State.

A reporter for the Oklahoma Voice took the online test and intentionally picked the most ridiculous choices. It turns out that when you got a wrong answer, the test allowed you to try again and again until you picked the choice they wanted so it was impossible to fail. It makes you wonder about the poor quality of teaching and learning in the Sooner State.

The test has a number of questions about defining sex but no questions about Oklahoma history. Teachers don’t have to know about the Trail of Tears forcing East Coast Native American tribes onto Oklahoma Territory reservations or race riots that destroyed the Tulsa African American community.

Don’t be nervous. I highlighted the answers Oklahoma wants you to pick to prove you aren’t WOKE.

1. According to the Supreme Court cases Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), who has the ultimate right to direct a child’s education?
a. The Superintendent of Schools
b. The parents
c. The Board of Education
d. The federal Department of Education

2. What is the fundamental biological distinction between males and females?
a. Height and weight
b. Blood type
c. Personal preference
d. Chromosomes and reproductive anatomy

3. How is a child’s biological sex typically identified?
a. Parental affirmation of child’s preference
b. Personal feelings
c. Visual anatomical observation and chromosomes
d. Online registration

4. Which chromosome pair determines biological sex in humans?
a. AA/BB
b. XX/XY
c. RH/AB
d. XE/XQ

5. Why is the distinction between male and female considered important in areas like sports and privacy?
a. For equity in minority communities
b. To preserve fairness, safety and integrity for both sexes
c. To increase participation in sports
d. To enhance the self-esteem of transgender children

6. Should teachers be allowed to express their own political viewpoints in the classroom In order to persuade the students to adopt their point of view?
a. Yes, teachers have freedom of speech, too, which does not stop at the classroom door
b. No, once you become a teacher, your freedom of speech in and out of the classroom is restricted
c. Yes, sometimes – when the issue includes civil rights or social justice
d. No, the classroom is not an appropriate venue for political activism

7. What did the Supreme Court rule in the 2025 case of Mahmoud v. Taylor?
a. Gender-affirming medical procedures are allowed in America
b. Students must recite the Pledge of Allegiance in schools
c. Religious schools must hire non-religious staff
d. Public schools cannot require participation in LGBTQ-themed instruction without a parental opt-out

8. What are the first three words of the U.S. Constitution?
a. In God We Trust
b. We the People
c. Life, Liberty, Happiness
d. The United States

9. Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?
a. It protects religious choice from government control
b. It makes Christianity the national religion
c. It bans all forms of public worship
d. It limits religious teaching in the public square

10. What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
a. The House of Lords and The House of Commons
b. The judiciary and the Senate
c. The Executive and the Legislative
d. The Senate and the House of Representatives

11. How many total U.S. senators are there?
a. 435
b. 535
c. 100
d. 50

12. Why do some states have more representatives than others?
a. Representation is allocated by population
b. They cover a larger geographic area
c. They have held statehood for a longer period
d. The number is determined by Congress

13. What is the primary responsibility of the president’s Cabinet?
a. Approve Supreme Court justices
b. Pass legislation
c. Sign executive orders
d. Advise the president

14. Who signs bills into law?
a. The vice president
b. The chief justice
c. The president
d. The speaker of the house

15. What is the highest court in the United States?
a. The Federal Court
b. The Court of Appeals
c. The District Court
d. The Supreme Court

16. In the United States, which of the following is a responsibility reserved only for citizens?
a. Serve on a jury
b. Own a home
c. Pay taxes
d. Possess a driver’s license

17. Which of the following are explicitly listed in the Bill of Rights?
a. Freedom of speech and religion
b. Voting and public education
c. Reproductive rights and healthcare
d. Freedom from data collection and surveillance

18. Which right does the Second Amendment protect?
a. The right to hunt and fish
b. The right to arm the military
c. The right to restrict certain kinds of speech
d. The right to keep and bear arms

19. What is the supreme law of the United States?
a. Presidential Executive Orders
b. Laws passed by Congress and signed by the president
c. Laws passed by state legislatures and signed by state governors
d. The Constitution

20. Who wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence?
a. John Adams
b. Thomas Jefferson
c. John Hancock
d. Thomas Paine

21. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted?
a. July 4, 1778
b. July 4, 1787
c. July 4, 1776
d. July 4, 1619

22. What was the primary reason the colonists fought the British?
a. To resist expansion of the British Empire
b. To maintain slavery
c. To resist taxation without representation
d. To resist forced military service

23. Who were the first three U.S. presidents?
a. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton
b. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson
c. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison
d. George Washington, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln

24. Who is called the “Father of Our Country”?
a. Benjamin Franklin
b. Abraham Lincoln
c. Martin Luther King Jr.
d. George Washington

25. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?
a. Ended Prohibition
b. Freed Confederate generals
c. Freed the slaves in the North
d. Ended slavery in the rebelling Confederate states

26. What was Abraham Lincoln’s primary reason for waging the Civil War?
a. To preserve states’ rights
b. To abolish slavery
c. To preserve the Union
d. To end the Union

27. What cause is Martin Luther King Jr. best known for?
a. Advocating for segregation
b. Advocating for the abolition of slavery
c. Advocating for diversity, equity and inclusion
d. Advocating for racial equality under the law

28. How did the Cold War end?
a. The U.S. prevailed in the Cuban Missile Crisis
b. Russia invaded and occupied Ukraine
c. The Soviet Union Collapsed
d. The U.S., the European Union, and the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty

29. Who was president during the Great Depression and WWII?
a. Woodrow Wilson
b. Harry S. Truman
c. Franklin D. Roosevelt
d. Theodore Roosevelt

30. What is the name of the national anthem?
a. “The Star-Spangled Banner”
b. “America the Beautiful”
c. “This Land is Your Land”
d. “God Bless America”

31. Why are there thirteen stripes on the American flag?
a. One for each signer of the Declaration of Independence
b. To honor the Thirteenth Amendment
c. To commemorate America’s fallen soldiers
d. To symbolize the original colonies

32. Which national holiday honors those who died while serving in the U.S. military?
a. Armistice Day
b. Memorial Day
c. Veterans Day
d. Flag Day

33. Which of the following is a phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance?
a. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
b. Of, by and for the people
c. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all
d. One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all

34. From what does the United States government derive its power?
a. The Supreme Court
b. The people
c. The president

An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else

An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else

by Diane Ravitch

Reviewed by Dr. Alan Singer, Hofstra University

According to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, “Diane Ravitch’s telling of her remarkable journey — from a child of working-class immigrants to one of the most vital national education treasures and leaders — tells us so much about her unwavering support for public education and its role in our society. That would be beautiful enough, but the second thrill is how she brings her curiosity — an essential trait we nurture in students — to question her own views and change her mind. The result is this clarion call to protect and strengthen public schooling in America as the foundation of our young people — and our democracy. If you care about the future, read this book.”

Diane Ravitch has spent five decades analyzing and advocating for national and state education policies designed to reform and reshape public schools. Her work supporting school choice made her the intellectual darling of the right. But when she renounced school choice as a failure, she was abandoned by many old friends and colleagues. Today she is a champion for public schools, a foe of standardized testing, and proclaims herself to be “woke.” Her latest book, An Education: How I Changed My Mind About Schools and Almost Everything Else is published by Columbia University Press

Ravitch was one of eight children from a Jewish family in Houston, Texas, where she grew up with no television, no air conditioning, and, often, no shoes. In college she met and married a man from a wealthy and connected New York City family, where they lived and raised a family. She began working for a socialist magazine, which led to writing about education and, eventually, a PhD in education history.

Ravitch’s writings favored strengthening and expanding school choice and rigorous testing, ideas that aligned well with conservative donors and think tanks who supported her work and led to positions in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. Meanwhile, a chance encounter at an education conference with a New York City high school social studies teacher, Mary Butz, led to a clandestine romance. Ravitch’s new relationship upended her previous “life of comfort and plenty” and led to her marriage to Mary.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg sought Ravitch’s support and counsel for the changes he and school commissioner Joel Klein instituted during his administration, but it was at this time that Ravitch began to question the results of standardized testing and school choice programs like charter schools. Improved test scores at lauded schools proved illusory and charter schools only seemed to thrive because they were able to weed out the most challenged pupils. Gradually, Ravitch abandoned her long-held views on the power of testing or the promise of choice. She began to write and speak out in favor of saving America’s besieged public schools.

Ravitch’s involvement in education idea and policy have earned her a reputation as education’s best-known living historian and its most controversial figure.  An Education is the story of the making, unmaking, and remaking of a public intellectual and a remarkable testament to the importance of a mind open to truth and possibility in a world, she writes, “of masks and artifice”.

A Reflection on July 4

A Reflection on July 4th

By Lavada Nahon

Twenty-five years before Frederick Douglass gave his famous “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” speech in Rochester, the enslaved population of New York contemplated a similar question as they prepared to celebrate the abolition of slavery, on July 4, 1827.

As communities across the state decorated to honor the birthday of the new nation, it became increasingly clear to the state’s Black communities that perhaps parading and celebrating in public space to honor their own freedom, had the potential to not end well if they did so on the 4th, the official day of the legal end of slavery in the state. They feared being attacked and suffering other types of violence from the White community because they too would call upon the words their enslavers had shouted so long ago.

They had waited 28 years for legal slavery to end, the time clock started in 1799 with the passing of the Act of Gradual Abolition, which gave no end date for their emancipation, but bound their unborn children to their mother’s enslavers until they were in their mid to late 20s. The Act that opened the way for their children, but not for anyone else. Those who toiled inside and outside for the benefit of others, would be left behind, to continue raising other people’s children, while theirs, at some point in the future could walk unfettered by the unseen, but ever-present chains they wore.

Then came the 1810 law that required the people holding those born free to teach them to read and write. This law was largely ignored, in spite of the fact that not doing so would allow those born free to see emancipation earlier at 18.  Something that the New York Manumission Society helped a number of them do, by taking their enslavers to court and proving that at 18, they could neither read nor write. Then it was seven more years to get to the 1817 Act relative to Servants and Slaves that actually set a date for abolition, even though it was ten years in the future.  It also pave the way for those born before July 4, 1799, and called “slaves” to be released. Finally, there was more than just hope.

But things rarely play out as smoothly as we would like. Weeks before the day was to arrive the conversations started happening. I imagine them beginning as whispered conversations, shared on the fly, when they were out and about working. Then in a somewhat louder voice when they were alone. Their conversations grew until preachers began talking about it. Up and down the road as they moved about, between those enslaved and those already freed, they continued.

They found themselves debating if it was wise for them to celebrate in mass on the official day, because it was the new nation’s birthday, and racism was increasingly a cause for worry as more and more were manumitted, and the presence of free Blacks walking the streets, starting businesses, living their lives began to grind on people’s nerves. Not to mention it had been against the law from the early 1690s for enslaved people to make noise on Sundays. It even appeared in the nation’s first Black owned newspaper which was published in New York City.

These conversations about when to celebrate happened years after many of them had overheard their enslavers talking about obtaining their freedom from Britain in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. Even as their enslavers tossed around words suggesting that they were being treated like slaves and would not have it, as if taxation without representation equaled being seen as property and not people. I imagine that many enslaved men who had replaced their enslavers on the battlefield thought about their own freedom for the eight years of the war. I’m sure they wondered if the promise of their own freedom given to them when they put on the uniforms, either red coats, or blue jackets, would truly play out.

During the war years as separation from Britain reigned supreme, the large population of enslaved had to manage not only their own lot in life, but the stress and anger of their enslavers who lost homes, crops, animals, stored food, family members, and even other enslaved as various parts of the state were burned out or stolen as troops from both sides, passed by or engaged in battle.

Years after in 1783, at end of the war when Loyalists and British troops were leaving New York, some enslaved may have begun grieving the loss of family or friends who did gain their freedom and may have been aboard one of the ships that took thousands of newly freed Black people from New York’s harbor to Nova Scotia and other ports on evacuation day. After all that time, the enslaved, longing to finally be free, found themselves debating whether it was safe for them to rejoice in their own freedom on the actual day it was given.

As we approach the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in New York on July 4/5 of 2027, many of us find ourselves contemplating some of the same thoughts the waiting to be free people of Albany and New York in general, did. Thinking on some of the sentiments Douglass shared in his 4th of July oration. Asking ourselves, what does the 4th of July mean to us? As my colleagues and I delve deeper into the mountains of documents related to the long history of chattel slavery in New York, and the cumbersome process of dismantling a portion of the institution of slavery, we find ourselves constantly amazed that so many people are still unaware of the deep roots slavery has in our state’s history.

Every once in a while, I find myself thinking that surely it is not so. To figure it out I began talks on occasion with a short three to five question survey. Answers given simply by raising a hand. Unfortunately, when I did this recently before giving an overview of Slavery in New York at Riverbank State Park, the audience of fifty or so people proved that things remained the same. That no matter if the audience is Black or White, or a mixture of our state’s wonderful cultural rainbow, the awareness of New York as a place of enslavement remains too hidden.

I can ask about the 1619 Project and people are aware of it, even if they have not read it. But if I ask when the first enslaved arrived in New Netherland, there generally is silence. I have learned to also ask them if they know what the original colonial name of New York was. Then I generally get a few hands, but not many. So, we are all clear, for years we danced around the year, finally settling on 1626, but after years of wondering, we know now that on August 29, 1627, 22 African men and women arrived in New Amsterdam on a Dutch privateer and became the first of the Dutch West India company’s slaves. We know the name of the ship and the circumstance surrounding how they ended up on a Dutch privateer. Currently we are awaiting the publishing of a paper that will also give us the name of the Portuguese ship they were taken from. Those 22 were part of a larger cargo of over 200 people headed to Brazil. Those 22 men and women were the first, but they would not be the last.

From that day forward, for 200 years, West Central, West, and Malagasy Africans would become the dominant labor force in the colony of New Netherland that would ultimately become the state of New York. Although this truth has been shared for years, it is still too common for people to say that slavery was not part of our state’s history. Part of that is due to the use of the word servant(s) instead of slave(s). In document collections across the state, in maps referring to burial grounds, the servants take up a lot of space. And with our love of British history, we imagine programs like Upstairs, Downstairs, or more recently Downton Abbey, where the servants are White making a decent wage, not enslaved Africans or their descendants. So, we read or listen to Douglass’ speech and say, well…it didn’t happen here. New York was a place of freedom, or a landmass that needed to be crossed to take people to the freedom they’d find in Canada.  But it did. And it happened in Canada too.  

The enslavement of thousands is only one part of the institution of slavery that graced New York. During the 200 years of forced servitude and long after 1827 ended the law of holding people as property, wealth flowed into the state as it had for decades because of the multiple economic links to the transatlantic slave trade, the ties that bound New York to the rest of the world. The wheat economy that was birthed in the 1630s with the establishment of Rensselaerwijck would spread southward down the Hudson River Valley and out to Long Island, and thousands of tons of wheat would flow from the harbors of New York to the Caribbean and West Indies to feed those bound to sugar and salt plantations. Money from the coffers of New York’s elite families would purchase sugar plantations in Jamaica, Barbados, and on other islands, and that wealth would create beautiful homes well into the 19th century like Hyde Hall on Glimmerglass Lake. As the years rolled along, enslaved from those sugar plantations would flow in and out of New York to serve in one way or another their enslavers or their relatives. Or to be sold, bequeathed or rented out, depending upon the need.

The ties to Southern tobacco and later sugar plantations that began during the Dutch period would continue to grow throughout the 200-year history, as people were brought directly from Africa and sold in the South, leaving New York City with the legacy of being the second largest slave market in the 13 colonies. And later in the 19thcentury, Brooklyn would flourish as more of that sugar would arrive to be processed there. As southern cotton expanded, after slavery had ended here, New Yorkers would build factories up and down the Hudson River for processing it. Political dances would be done, to hide the collusions between a free state and southern slavery. Profits would not be forfeited.

Insurance companies based in New York would grow bigger to cover cargo on ships flowing in and out including slave ships. More slave traders would move to New York, the ancestral home of many, in the early 19th century, where ships were easier to get and sail from the state’s harbors to the coasts of West Africa and even though they could not bring Africans into the US any longer, they were fine taking them into Cuba. Fine, until Lincoln finally said no more and the last of New York’s slave traders was hanged in 1861.

The New York Stock Exchange would grow out of these economic links to slavery, and more money would be made. Continuing the process began by the Dutch of individual investors, buying stock in the shipments, just one of many commodities on the world market. The underbelly of slavery would continue to grow fat, well past the years of Douglass’ speech and eventually the history of New York slavery would try to be buried in the early 20th century as the colonial revival period saw many people rewriting their family’s early stories, removing the names of women who raised children, or men who plowed fields, or just burn the wills to hide the numbers of people passed on. But even as hard as they tried, the history of slavery would not be buried for long. Bones were unearthed as villages grew into towns, then into cities and land, once considered worthless was needed. In the expansion, the presence of unmarked graves sent people to maps, which showed African burial grounds or Colored or Negro ones. But that would not stop the desecration. The projects would just move on with remains being dug up and discarded or just covered over.  

The legacy of 200 years of slavery has increasingly caught up with many, as more people delve into their family histories and find that their ancestors were not as pristine as once believed, and the money they bequeathed across the generations came tainted with blood, sweat and a lot of tears. Or they run into someone with the same last name but not the same color skin which has resulted in the messages on many DNA companies which inform people of that before they are shocked by the discovery of who they really are.

What to the slave is the 4th of July is a question that haunts us even today, as we are challenged by the rewriting of our nation’s history by those who live in a settler’s colonized world. The foundation of our nation did not bypass New York. And, it reminds us daily that our state was built on a slave society even as we try to pretend, we were a society with just a few slaves.

2027 is just around the corner, and July 4th will echo Douglass’ time, and fall on a Sunday. A day sacred in its own right. And like the ancestors, across the state, including the folks right here in Albany, many of us will bypass it as the day to honor the abolition of slavery in New York, because well…some history does seem to repeat itself. And like them, we will take to the streets on Monday, July the 5th, and we will listen as bells ring in the air and from our hands at 12:00 noon, for one minute, to remind those who know, and educate those who do not, that slavery was part of New York’s history, and it will never be forgotten again.        

How Rightwing Money Tries to Shape the Teaching of American History

How Rightwing Money Tries to Shape the Teaching of American History

By Alan Singer

The Bill of Rights Institute sponsors events and provides scholarships for the annual conference of the National Council for the Social Studies. On the face of it, it seems innocuous, until you dig a little deeper. The NCSS sells sponsorships, display booths, and sessions that combined can cost a publisher or an organization almost $15,000 which it uses to cover the cost of the convention. At the 2024 NCSS National Conference in Boston, Bill of Rights Institute representatives conducted ten sessions. I have no idea what the Bill of Rights Institute actually pays, but I do know the money and their curriculum initiatives come from the rightwing Koch Foundation and its network of aligned organizations including Americans for Prosperity and the Stand Together Trust. In a 2017 interview with the conservative research group Accuracy in Academia, the President of the Bill of Rights Institute claimed it was working with “approximately one-quarter of the nation’s secondary school teachers in American history, civics, and social studies.”

Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in the United States, is a $115 billion conglomerate that owns oil refineries and pipelines, markets oil, coal, and chemicals, wood pulp and paper. It uses the Koch Foundation and network to fund conservative causes including challenges to climate science, support for corporate tax cuts, and eliminating federal regulations and environmental controls. The Koch network channeled over $9 million to Project 2025 advisory groups. Other major financial backers of the Bill of Rights Institute include the Adolph Coors Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Bradley Impact Fund, and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, all donors to the Heritage Foundation for creation of Project 2025. Much of that money was channeled through and the Donors Capital Fund.

In 2014, Bill Bigelow, writing for the Zinn Education Project, accused the Koch Brothers of trying to shape social studies curriculum through their Arlington, Virginia-based Bill of Rights Institute, founded in 1999. According to Bigelow, the Bill of Rights Institute’s tactics to infiltrate social studies include presentations at conferences, essay contests for students, and free seminars for teachers on topics like “Being an American,” “Preserving the Bill of Rights,” and “Heroes and Villains: The Quest for Civic Virtue.” Bigelow argued that their curriculum material “cherry-picks the Constitution, history, and current events to hammer home its libertarian message that the owners of private property should be free to manage their wealth as they see fit.” In one lesson students learn, “The Founders considered industry and property rights critical to the happiness of society.” Of course in many cases their belief in individual property rights included the right to enslave Africans and confiscate land from North America’s indigenous population. In his review of Bill of Rights Institute curriculum and background material, Bigelow found “nothing that could help teachers show students how race and social class shaped the U.S. Constitution” and “nothing that invites students to think about the Constitution from the point of view of anyone other than the elites who drafted it,” including the new nation’s enslaved population.

I attended a regional social studies council conference where a representative from the Bill of Rights Institute made multiple presentations including one on African American participation in the American War for Independence. The lesson plan and supplementary material is available of the Bill of Rights Institute’s website (https://billofrightsinstitute.org/lessons/paths-to-freedom-african-americans-and-the-revolutionary-war). With the Trump administration’s war on museum displays and social studies curriculum that portray negative aspects of U.S. history like the brutality of chattel slavery, I think it is a good example of how the Bill of Rights Institute skews the teaching of American history in line with patriotic history as championed by Project 2025 and the Trump administration’s The 1776 Report. This lesson acknowledges slavery but emphasizes, I believe incorrectly, how the American Revolution was a significant step towards emancipation using isolated examples to support its contentions. The reality is that with the development of the cotton gin in the 1790s and the expansion of cotton production and textile manufacturing at the start of the 19th century slavery in the United States expanded exponentially.

Excerpts from a statement by the Bill of Rights Institute followed by my comments in italics.

  1. The resistance against Great Britain and the Revolutionary War inspired American colonists to think about their natural and constitutional rights. The language and principles of liberty, equality, and self-governance led White and Black Americans to question the institution of slavery and to challenge it more directly. Their diverse efforts led to the largest emancipation in world history at that time and freed an estimated 100,000 enslaved people.

This is misleading. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution challenged the existence of slavery in what would become the United States. A majority of the men who wrote both documents were slaveholders. A statement blaming the King of England for imposing the slave trade on British colonies was removed from the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution indirectly acknowledged the legitimacy of slavery with the three-fifth compromise and provisions for the capture and return of freedom-seekers.

  • Some colonists acknowledged the moral wrong of slavery while protesting British violations of their rights in the 1760s and 1770s. Pamphleteer James Otis wrote that, “The Colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black.” Pennsylvanian Benjamin Rush wrote, “It would be useless for us to denounce the servitude to which the Parliament of Great Britain wishes to reduce us, while we continue to keep our fellow creatures in slavery just because their color is different from ours.” While some colonists addressed the contradiction of slavery and freedom, Black Americans challenged the institution.

Neither George Washington nor Thomas Jefferson freed enslaved Africans that they owned during their lifetimes. A 1773 letter written by Patrick Henry, who is remembered for declaring “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death,” is telling about the attitudes of white colonialists about the institution of slavery. In the letter, Henry wrote “Would any one believe that I am Master of Slaves of my own purchase! I am drawn along by ye. general inconvenience of living without them.”

  • Enslaved persons appealed to revolutionary ideals to argue for their natural rights. In 1773, four enslaved persons in Massachusetts petitioned the legislature for their freedom “which, as men, we have a natural right to.” The following year, a group of enslaved men presented a freedom petition claiming their natural rights and right to consent. “We have in common with all other men a natural right to our freedom without being deprived of them by our fellow men.” The legislature did not yet act upon the petitions, but Black Americans continued to petition for their freedom during the war as did Nero Brewster and 19 other enslaved individuals in New Hampshire in 1779.

The petitions were almost always unsuccessful. Only one of the original thirteen colonies, Massachusetts, outlawed slavery. Most of the enslaved Africans emancipated during the war were emancipated by the British.

  • Once the Revolutionary War began in 1775 at Lexington and Concord, free and enslaved Blacks joined both the patriot and British sides. Several Black patriots fought bravely at the Battle of Bunker Hill alongside White soldiers, but General George Washington forbade their service in the Continental Army that fall. However, dire manpower needs caused Washington and Congress soon to reverse that policy. The differing states had varied recruiting policies during the war: only South Carolina and Georgia prevented all Blacks from serving. A total of 5,000 free and enslaved Blacks fought for the patriot side throughout the war.

After Lord Dunmore offered freedom to any enslaved Africans who escaped to the British lines, an estimated 20,000 former slaves fought for their freedom by joining the British. The most famous of these was Titus Cornelius, Colonel Tye, who initially fought with Virginia’s Ethiopian Regiment and later led the New Jersey region’s Black Brigade.

Three Pounds Reward – Run away from the subscriber, living in Shrewsbury, in the county of Monmouth, New Jersey, a Negroe man, named Titus, but may probably change his name; he is about 21 years of age, not very black, near 6 feet high; had on a grey homespun coat, brown breeches, blue and white stockings, and took with him a wallet, drawn up at one end with a string, in which was a quantity of clothes. Whoever takes said Negroe, and secures him in any gaol, or brings him to me, shall be entitled to the above reward of Three Pounds, proc. And all reasonable charges paid by John Corlis. Nov. 8, 1775.
  • The British consistently encouraged enslaved persons to escape to support the British war effort and disrupt the American cause rather than out of a sincere desire for Black freedom.

During peace negotiations George Washington demanded that the British return formerly enslaved Africans including people he claimed to own as contraband. The British refused and evacuated as many as 20,000 Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia and other parts of the British empire.

  • During the war, General Washington’s aides, John Laurens and his friend Alexander Hamilton, developed an emancipation plan. In 1779, Congress endorsed their plan to raise a contingent of 3,000 enslaved men in South Carolina and Georgia who would be granted their freedom in exchange for military service. The legislatures of those two southern states rejected the scheme because of their opposition to emancipation and to arming enslaved persons.

In November 1775, George Washington issued an order barring both free and enslaved Black men from serving in the colonial army. In January 1776, Washington permitted the enlistment of free Black men who already were serving in the army and in 1777, all free Black men were permitted to join. Only Rhode Island offered freedom to enslaved men who joined the army. In a letter to Laurens’ father, Washington explained his fear that if the colonists did not arm enslaved Africans and offer them freedom, the British would and the war could be lost. Despite Washington’s pragmatic change of position, the plan was never implemented.

Bill of Rights Institute Guiding Questions:

How did African Americans participate in the Revolutionary War?

How did their actions reflect a desire to enjoy their natural rights?

Objectives:

Students will be able to connect actions taken by African Americans during the Revolutionary War to an understanding of natural rights of equality and justice.

Students will summarize the main ideas of historic texts.

Students will create an argument supported by evidence from primary sources. How did African Americans participate in the Revolutionary War? How did their actions reflect a desire to enjoy their natural rights?

Materials

Student Resources:

Suggested required documents:

The Boston Massacre engraving by Paul Revere, 1770

The Phillipsburg Proclamation, 1779

“Soldiers at the siege of Yorktown,” by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger, 1781

James Armistead’s Petition to the Virginia General Assembly, November 30, 1786

Suggested additional documents:

Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation, 1775

“An act directing the emancipation of certain slaves who have served as soldiers in this state, and for the emancipation of the slave Aberdeen,” Virginia General Assembly, October 20, 1783

George Washington’s Last Will and Testament, July 9, 1799

These materials are missing from the Bill of Rights Institute’s suggested documents.

A. This charge against the King of England was removed from the original draft of the Declaration of Independence before it was signed on July 4, 1776: “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither  . . . Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has suppressed every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”

B. Boston King’s Escape to the British Lines (1779): “As I was at prayer one evening, I thought the Lord Heard Me, and would mercifully deliver me. [P]utting my confidence in him, about one o’clock in the morning, I went down to the river side and found the guards were either asleep or in the tavern. I instantly entered the water, but when I was a little distance from the opposite shore, I heard the sentinels disputing among themselves. One said, I am sure I saw a man cross the river. Another replied, there is no such thing. When I got a little distance from the shore I got down on my knees and thanked God for this deliver-ance. I traveled until five o’clock in the morning and then concealed myself until seven o’clock at night, when I proceeded forward thro’ brushes and marshes for fear of being discovered. When I came to the river, opposite Staten Island, I found a boat and altho it was near a whale-boat, I ventured into it and cutting the rope, I got safe over. The commanding officer, when informed of my case, gave me a passport and I proceeded to New York.”

C. Pennsylvania Gazette on April 12, 1780 reported on a Monmouth County raid led by Colonel Tye: On the 30th ult. a party of Negroes and Refugees, from the Hook, landed at Shrewsbury in order to plunder. During their excursion, a Mr. Russel, who attempted to make some resistance to their depredations, was killed, and his grandchild had five balls shot through him, but is yet living.” On September 9, 1780, Philadelphia Gazette reported: “One of these attempts (and one which very nearly proved successful) was made about the 1st of September, 1780, by a body of Refugees black and white, including among the former the mulatto leader known as “Colonel Tye.” The party made an unexpected attack on Huddy’s house, which was bravely defended by himself and a girl of about twenty years of age, named Lucretia Emmons. The house had been a station for a detachment of the militia, and fortunately the guard had left there several muskets, which the girl now loaded as rapidly as possible and handed to Huddy, who fired them successively from different windows, wounding several of the assailants and causing them to greatly overestimate the number of defenders. This caused them to shrink from further direct attack, and they then set fire to the house, which, of course, ended all hope of successful resistance on Huddy’s part, and seeing the flames beginning to spread, he, to save his house, agreed to surrender on condition that they would extinguish the fire, which terms they accepted.”

D. George Washington, while headquartered at Newburgh, New York, objected to British plans to evacuate formerly enslaved Africans as a violation of the provisional peace agreement and he sought to find and reacquire people he claimed as his own property. In an April 1783 letter to Benjamin Harrison, the Governor of Virginia, Washington wrote: “I transmitted the list of your Slaves to a Gentleman; a worthy active Man, of my acquaintance in New York and requested him to use his endeavors to obtain and forward them to you. All that can be done, I am sure he will do, but I have but little expectation that many will be recovered; several of my own are with the Enemy but I scarce ever bestowed a thought on them; they have so many doors through which they can escape from New York, that scarce any thing but an inclination to return, or voluntarily surrender of themselves will restore many to their former Masters, even supposing every disposition on the part of the Enemy to deliver them.”

E. Virginians Petition to Protect Slavery (1784): “Some men of considerable weight to wrestle from us, by an Act of the legislature, the most valuable and indispensable Article of our Property, our SLAVES by general emancipation of them. … such a scheme indeed consists very well with the principles and designs of the North, whose Finger is sufficiently visible in it. … No language can express our indignation, Contempt and Detestation of the apostate wretches. … It therefore cannot be admitted that any man had a right … to divest us of our known rights to property which are so clearly defined.”

F. Article in the New-York Packet, April 4, 1785: “It would be greatly injurous to this state if all the Negroes should be allowed the privileges of white men, unless there could be derived some possible means consistent with liberty, to separate them from white people, and prevent them from having any connection or intercourse with them . … [I]f they are emancipated on any other terms, it must be evident to the most common understanding, what will be the consequence in a short time; besides the shame we should most inevitably incur from a mixture of complexions, and their participating in government, … still greater consequence is to be dreaded, which is a total subversion of our liberties.”

G. Jupiter Hammon, poet and minister, was enslaved on Long Island. In 1786, he addressed this statement on slavery to the African population of New York State: “Now I acknowledge that liberty is a great thing, and worth seeking for, if we can get it honestly, and by our good conduct, prevail on our masters to set us free. That liberty is a great thing we may know from our own feelings, and we may likewise judge so from the conduct of the white people, in the late war. How much money has been spent, and how many lives have been lost, to defend their liberty. I must say that I have hoped that God would open their eyes, when they were so much engaged for liberty, to think of the state of the poor blacks, and to pity us. He has done it in some measure, and has raised us up many friends, for which we have reason to be thankful, and to hope in his mercy.”

H. According to the Mount Vernon library, seventeen members of the Mount Vernon enslaved population, fourteen men and three women escaped, many to a British warship anchored in the Potomac River. Hercules Posey, George Washington’s cook, and Ona Judge, Martha Washington’s personal servant successfully escaped bondage during Washington’s Presidency while the family was in Philadelphia. They fled to freedom when Washington tried to rotate them back to Virginia to avoid Pennsylvania’s emancipation laws. Posey was later sighted in New York City. Frederick Kitt, who oversaw the executive residence in Philadelphia, placed an advertisement in the Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser offering a $10 reward for Judge’s capture. In 1847, The Liberator published a letter from Reverend Benjamin Chase describing a visit with Ona Judge Staines who was now elderly where she recounted her escape. From Philadelphia Judge secured passage on a ship bound for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A few months after arriving in Portsmouth, Judge was recognized by a friend of Martha Washington’s granddaughter and George Washington enlisted the customs collector there, a federal employee, in an unsuccessful effort to capture Judge. The runaway slave ad and The Liberator article are included on the Bill of Rights Institute web page as “Further Reading,” but not the letter from Washington to the Portsmouth Customs Collector.

I. Letter from President George Washington to Joseph Whipple, Customs Collector, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, November 28, 1796:  I regret that the attempt you made to restore the girl (Oney Judge as she called herself while with us, and who, without the least provocation absconded from her Mistress) should have been attended with so little success. To enter into such a compromise, as she has suggested to you, is totally inadmissible, for reasons that must strike at first view: for however well disposed I might be to a gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People (if the latter was in itself practicable at this Moment) it would neither be politic or just, to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference; and thereby discontent, beforehand, the minds of all her fellow Servants; who by their steady adherence, are far more deserving than herself, of favor. … If she will return to her former Service, without obliging me to resort to compulsory means to effect it, her late conduct will be forgiven by her Mistress; and she will meet with the same treatment from me, that all the rest of her family (which is a very numerous one) shall receive. If she will not, you would oblige me, by pursuing such measures as are proper, to put her on board a Vessel bound either to Alexandria or the Federal City.”

J. Runaway Slave Ads

Sources:

https://www.socialstudies.org/conference/conference-sponsors

https://accountable.us/leo-koch-networks-funnel-55m-into-project-2025-groups/

https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/

https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/

Book Review: Review of Student Research for Community Change: Tools to Develop Ethical Thinking and Analytic Problem Solving

Review of Student Research for Community Change: Tools to Develop Ethical Thinking and Analytic Problem Solving

by William Tobin and Valerie Feit, 2020.  Teachers College Press, 127 pages. 

Review by: Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

This new text provides an explanation of a program – and a plan – for getting high school students involved in important hands-on research right in their communities.  The two authors have become experts in encouraging young people to start on research early – not waiting for college.  Despite more traditional approaches of letting students wait to become upperclassmen in college, the authors learned to forge ahead and assume students could do this work.

William Tobin is a research fellow with the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.  The program explained in this book is an example of the community work Tobin and his students have been doing to help their neighbors.  Valerie Feit is co-director of school counseling for Rye Neck, New York schools.  This program has been used successfully in three different applications at Duke.

The authors talk in terms of “tools” for coming up with research problems and questions, plans for finding out information, and guidance in making recommendations to solve the problems (pp. 23-24).  I think of this book’s content in terms of methods for approaching the work.  This looks like a method, with many parts, with rules, with suggestions, and with potential.

The authors provide tools for this “method” of teaching and learning they hope will be applicable in other settings.  They have already had students complete research projects using this method.  They use a qualitative approach, overall, in their research.  However, they do not stress this fact in the book.  Interviews and protocols to conduct them ground us in qualitative approaches to getting information from people to help students – and the community ultimately — solve problems. 

The method connects clearly (in terms of policy and application) to national standards in the different learning areas, plus Common Core college-ready and work-ready emphases.  The method looks forward to more advanced levels of inquiry than the more traditional benchmarked studies of the past.  It does this by assuming students can do more advanced and challenging work if they can see the purpose for it, the rewards for it, and the connections of it to real-life goals. 

While I will not give away the content and all the goods here, I will say that this appears to be a good “method” for getting students working on purposeful projects earlier than traditionally done.  Aspiring to more is always good, especially if there is a research basis telling us the method can work. 

As an educator (and community member, advocate, and other roles) I have always been interested in the “why” of doing things in education.  Do we respect different learning styles?  Where did we as teachers “learn” to do xyz in classes?  Is  there a good research basis for using certain materials?  Has anyone ever proven it makes sense to do abc this way?  All of these kinds of questions enter my mind when I look at a new approach.  I wonder if this book could work in my neighborhood.  With students who need resources like a place to live?  In a community not very interested in helping others in need?  

The authors emphasize how they have already served communities and how they need partners and cooperation.  They remind us that institutions of higher education are supposed to be helping with such endeavors (p. 111).  Reminding the readers that IHEs have non-profit status because they are supposed to be assisting in important research projects in the community, the authors urge readers to seek faculty who will sign on and become excited to participate.

I would recommend this book for a couple different uses.  First, I would encourage K-12 and college educators read it to see what is possible if we assume students can do more and can meet challenges.  The book is important in that way.  Second, I would encourage educators to attempt to use some of the tools in a mini-project to ascertain the value of the method.  Then, if teachers and college researchers or others can come together to formulate a bigger project, more in-depth labor can be done.  Students do the work and need guidance and advice.  They need to learn about ethics and the role it plays in inquiry (pp. 12-13). 

This method, overall, is another good example of the more mature and advanced kinds of ways of thinking about education for secondary students and underclassmen.  As I said above, there is a clear connection to getting students ready for what comes at more advanced levels.

How to use the book in times of distance-learning?  How would students find neighbors interested in participating?  How would they work with other students to come up with questions?  What about brainstorming?  Planning?

This might be a method that calls for a hybrid approach.  The majority of the discussions could occur online (p. xvii) because of the power of the Internet.  This could be done especially during shared times – online meetings.  Different teams of students and teachers could work on different steps or themes of the research project.  However, it might be necessary to be out in the community to approach potential members and to set up some of the meetings (pp. 112-113) and the interviews.  The teams could conduct the remaining work online, such as the interviews, the discussion of them and other input, the drawing of conclusions from the various input sources, the writing of recommendations for intervention (or similar activities), and the follow-up and assessment stages for the entire project.   

Book Review: Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building Your Capacity for Success in the Classroom

Review of Teach, Reflect, Learn: Building Your Capacity for Success in the Classroom

by Pete Hall & Alisa Simeral.  Alexandria, VA: ASCD.  2015, paper, 178 pages.  

Reviewed by Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

Hall and Simeral have set forth here three major stages to helping teachers reflect on what they are doing in an effort to improve the instruction in the classroom.  The authors hope to help teachers learn how to reflect on a regular basis as part of the self-assessment process in which teachers should engage.  Included are lots of scenarios of teachers and their comments about why things are working—or not—in their classrooms.

As in most of my reviews, I try to not give away all the content.  Here, I will list the names of the nine main chapters of the book: If You Can Read This, Thank a Teacher; Reflections on Self-Reflection; Reflective Self-Assessment Tool; The Continuum of Self-Reflection; The Unaware Stage: What Does Unaware Mean, Anyway?; The Conscious Stage: Is the Knowing-Doing Gap Real?; The Action Stage: What Happens When Art and Science Collide?; and The Refinement Stage: Smoothing Out the Rough Edges.

Having attended a Jesuit institution for my Ph.D. in Education, I will have to admit I am fully aware of reflection as a major component of the teaching-improvement process.  In most all of my courses, I had to reflect on what I had said, or written, or taught, or done.  It was a very interesting reminder of the reflection process many successful and hard-working good educators already use in one form or another.

Most good teachers will admit they are always trying to improve their skills, whether it is coming up with better ways to explain a phenomenon or inventing better ways to let students come to their understanding of how a process works.  Good teachers probably apply it to their writing and their research and their service, also.  At least that is what the literature says.

Becoming more efficient is important, and this book does have some interesting hints about looking at learning situations with different lenses.  I recommend the book as a sort of self-study book, especially for teachers who want to consider some alternatives to learning about new methods or new materials.  Sometimes it has to do more with looking directly at how we as individuals do our work.  Once we have considered that, we can look outward.

I would recommend this text also in group settings where there are several different short paperbacks and small groups get to choose a book to discuss.  The readings in this and similar shorter texts can be a good starting point for considering what it is we are doing in the classroom.  Enjoyable and fruitful also are the stories of what other teachers use for methods and materials.

In a recent professional development session I worked on, several of the teachers said, “We never have enough time to talk to each other, simply about what we are doing in our classrooms.”  I think this is a good message for principals and others charged with PD and other sessions for teachers.  Helping them to reflect can be facilitated by books like this one by Hall and Simeral.