Because I know you all don't like to click on links I'll copy it here

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http://www.statesman.com/news/news/ut-am-shortchanging-students-on-american-history-r/nTrd9/

UT, A&M shortchanging students on American history, report says

By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz

American-Statesman Staff

American history courses at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University focus too much on race, class and gender and not enough on military, diplomatic, religious and intellectual matters, according to a new report.

The report by the National Association of Scholars and its affiliate, the Texas Association of Scholars, examined the textbooks and other readings for 85 sections of lower-division American history courses at the two schools in fall 2010. All too often, the report concluded, the readings gave students “a less-than-comprehensive picture of U.S. history,” with the situation “far more problematic” at UT than at A&M.

At UT, 78 percent of the faculty members who taught the freshman and sophomore classes were deemed “high assigners” of race, class and gender readings, meaning that more than half of the content had such a focus. At A&M, 50 percent of faculty members were deemed high assigners of such material.

The National Association of Scholars is a New York-based nonprofit. Its website lists dozens of concerns regarding higher education, such as “exclusion of conservative and traditional viewpoints,” “administrative bloat” and “partying and the hook-up culture.”

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based nonprofit with a small-government, free-market bent, is scheduled to hold a news conference Thursday touting the report, titled “Recasting History: Are Race, Class, and Gender Dominating American History?”

The report comes as state lawmakers are preparing to debate various proposals to alter higher education policy in Texas. Gov. Rick Perry is pushing to require the state’s 38 public universities to offer tuition rates that would remain constant for four years. Another proposal would base a portion of university and community college funding on each school’s graduation rate and other so-called student outcomes. Still another measure would streamline the process of transferring from a two-year to a four-year school.

“Strengthening the teaching of American history, government and Western civilization is at the very core of our recommendations for reform,” said Thomas Lindsay, director of the policy foundation’s Center for Higher Education.

A 1971 state law requires students at public universities in Texas to study American history, although some students can fulfill the requirement by taking an Advanced Placement course in high school.

Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT, said the report’s criticisms are “just not true.”

There’s no doubt that race, class and gender are themes in many course offerings, Suri said. But those themes are woven into a broader fabric that includes politics, diplomacy and other matters, he said.

“Our job is to prepare our students to understand the complexity of American society,” Suri said. “How could you teach race without politics? And how could you teach politics without race?”

Suri said the report’s authors didn’t sit in on any classes or meet with faculty members.

David Vaught, head of A&M’s history department, said in a statement that he hasn’t seen the report and hasn’t been contacted by anyone from the National Association of Scholars.

Richard Fonté, who wrote much of the report, acknowledged that the study has limitations.

“We don’t know what a faculty member says in a lecture. You don’t have the whole picture, but you have an idea of what students are reading,” said Fonté, a former president of Austin Community College and a former official of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Based on the readings, students are getting shortchanged, Fonté said. For example, students were rarely assigned to read Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address or Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.”

“They’re not getting a comprehensive picture of the American story in the survey courses and especially in special-topics courses, which we think should be eliminated,” Fonté said.

Eight UT faculty members taught special-topics courses whose readings focused almost exclusively on race, class or gender, he said. A&M had one special-topic course, dealing with naval history.

The report recommended that history departments review their courses and eliminate “inappropriate overemphases, and repair gaps and underemphases.” If the departments are unwilling, administrators or governing boards should consider ordering an external review, the report said.

The National Association of Scholars offered 10 recommendations for improving American history offerings:

1. History departments should review existing curricula, eliminate inappropriate overemphases, and repair gaps and underemphases.

2. Administrators or governing boards should convene an external review if history departments are unwilling.

3. Hire faculty members with a broader range of research interests.

4. Ensure that survey and introductory courses give comprehensive overviews.

5. History department members should collaborate to develop lists of readings that students are expected to study.

6. Design courses that contribute to a robust, evenhanded and reasonably complete curriculum.

7. Diversify graduate programs to ensure that they don’t unduly emphasize race, class and gender themes.

8. Other states should enact laws similar to the Texas requirement that students complete two courses in American history, but better accountability is needed to ensure that colleges’ teaching lines up with legal provisions.

9. Publishers should publish textbooks and anthologies that more adequately represent the full range of U.S. history.

10. Historians and professors of U.S. history should counter mission creep by returning to their primary task of handing down the American story, as a whole, to future generations.

So you read it, conservative critics attacking academic history as beng too focused on Gender, Race, and Class instead they state:

"10. Historians and professors of U.S. history should counter mission creep by returning to their primary task of handing down the American story, as a whole, to future generations. "

My question is what is "the American story" they speak of or more accurately, whose story is it?

Well I skimmed, but they say, "the American story, as a whole...."

My guess would be that they feel that there have been many parts of American history where decisions were not driven primarily or exclusively by race, so that it is therefore skewing to present only or mostly those that were. As far as "whose story," I would interpret this to suggest that no group or perspective should be singled out, though that is obviously an idealization.

What is your take?

(I should say, "race, class or gender," not "race," in the above).

I do think its true that there is a lot of focus on gender, race and class in history classes, at least there is in my AP US History class. But I don't really think that's necessarily bad, although it can be if teachers let their biases influence their teaching of gender, race and class history. But biases can get in the way of teaching other areas of history as well, too, including the areas that this group wants taught more.

I would say their interpetation is not that. I am getting this from #10 "

"10. Historians and professors of U.S. history should counter mission creep by returning to their primary task of handing down the American story, as a whole, to future generations. "

So the implication is that by teaching Race, Class, Gender the teachers are not teaching the American Story.

I think it is rather alarming that if a Survey course instructer (which is supposed to give students an introduction to the field of History as practiced today) Assigns more than 50% of readings on topics other than Diplomacy and Politics (which are, by the way, covered in the textbooks), they are branded as not telling the American Story. This is especially disturbing because by forcing a teacher to keep their readings, (which in today's classroom are often assigned to add different perspectives in American history) you are giving the message that the majority of the population is worth a minority of the reading. You also severely hamstring discussions of key themes in American history.

I don't really understand this part, SC:

"This is especially disturbing because by forcing a teacher to keep their readings, (which in today's classroom are often assigned to add different perspectives in American history) you are giving the message that the majority of the population is worth a minority of the reading. You also severely hamstring discussions of key themes in American history. "

Could you elaborate? Especially on the "majority of the population is worth a minority of the reading" thing.

Anyway, I think you're wrong in your interpretation of the words. You have twice ignored the phrase, "as a whole," but I think it's the key phrase. They're not saying taht some part of the American story really isn't the American story; they're saying that too narrow a portion of it is being told, and the focus should be broader. They're not even saying race, class, etc., shouldn't be discussed, just that it is being discussed to the exclusion of other important aspects.

"Could you elaborate? Especially on the "majority of the population is worth a minority of the reading" thing."

Read,

"At UT, 78 percent of the faculty members who taught the freshman and sophomore classes were deemed “high assigners” of race, class and gender readings, meaning that more than half of the content had such a focus. At A&M, 50 percent of faculty members were deemed high assigners of such material."

The majority of the population line refers to the fact that the segment of society discussed in polictical and diplomatic history (and the segment of society they represented) is a minority compared to minorities, women, and lower classes, yet teaching 50% of your class about the majority is seen as threatening to the American Story.

"Anyway, I think you're wrong in your interpretation of the words. You have twice ignored the phrase, "as a whole," but I think it's the key phrase. They're not saying taht some part of the American story really isn't the American story; they're saying that too narrow a portion of it is being told, and the focus should be broader. They're not even saying race, class, etc., shouldn't be discussed, just that it is being discussed to the exclusion of other important aspects. "

Yet they were unable to provide any evidence to suggest that other than class readings, which supplement textbook material that largely teaches the Political and diplomatic aspects of history

not to mention lectures, though they did include textbooks in their study supposedly.

I had a teacher in eighth grade who used Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States as a textbook. It was great.

In more serious American History classes, I have had teachers who were obviously incredibly biased about issues of equality (I'll admit that I'm probably metabiased on the subject, as I do share their opinions), but they all managed to provide a full spectrum of historical topics, most of which were on topics other than those which are supposedly over-taught.

OK, well, this is a rant, and I feel regret getting involved on this thread. You're clearly going to read whatever you want to in these people's words (they nowhere say they're just talking about political and diplomatic history, for example, and it's also very silly to suggest that something like the policies and views of Abraham Lincoln impacted only upper class white men).

"Yet they were unable to provide any evidence to suggest that other than class readings, which supplement textbook material that largely teaches the Political and diplomatic aspects of history"

Not all of the textbook is assigned. I don't know about your experience, but mine is that students relatively rarely read the part that's not. So I don't think that looking at reading assignments is a bad way to evaluate what's being taught, at all. Of course, I haven't looked at the study (nor, I imagine, have you), so I don't know whether they looked at what parts of books were assigned, or not. It does sound like they took into account what material the textbooks already contained.

Anyway, go ahead and respond or whatever, but I'm getting out of this one.

(My mistake on one point -- they apparently did mention politics and diplomacy, _among other things_. The rest of my post remains my view.).

@ghug: That book is way too biased to be a primary textbook for any history class, imo. It can be useful for supplementary materials though, and my AP US History teacher has given us some selections to read for homework at times. He warned us of the bias beforehand. And generally the next day is class we would read a short selection about the same era from a conservative historian, to balance out the bias. My teacher likes to keep the class relatively unbiased, though he himself is liberal.

I actually was very civil and I resent the tone you just addressed me in. Its not a rant, its a discussion. But some semck smugness is to me expected I suppose.

"they nowhere say they're just talking about political and diplomatic history"

Your right, my experience in teaching and in grad school provided me with that knowledge, because I hear this argument all the time. I highly doubt this group is complaining about the lack of environmental history. The fact that the teachers responding to the report specifically discuss political history illustrates this just as well.

"and it's also very silly to suggest that something like the policies and views of Abraham Lincoln impacted only upper class white men"

I never said that whatsoever

Yet, to the people that wrote this report, it seems profoundly silly to suggest that the words of Frederick Douglass, Lucretia Mott, or Eugene V Debs only affected Race, Gender, or Class and not the larger American experience.

actually as you said, I'm not crazy, I did read it, so in this case Semck is a smug ass-hat for no reason whatsoever as opposed to a bad reason

SC,

I'm sorry if I implied you weren't civi. You're quite right that you were, and my criticism was not that you weren't. My criticism was that you were reading in your preconceptions about what the people were talking about, so there was no use actually discussing it with you based on the text you had pasted.

"Your right, my experience in teaching and in grad school provided me with that knowledge, because I hear this argument all the time."

See?

I'm not saying you haven't heard the argument before, but I am saying that you're just going to insist that you're hearing it again now, regardless of anything anybody says about the actual text, so discussion is pretty pointless. That said, lest I be all semckogant, I'll draw out a few more examples of why I think you're wrong.

What are the _specific_ examples they give of things that they think should be covered? Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address and De Toqueville. Lincoln's address is political history, that's true. But it's not the type of political history that impacted primarily the rich or the white. (The presence of this example, and my presumption that it was the source of your remark on political history, was the reason I said you were being silly about Lincoln before. I perhaps was confused about where you were getting that).

And De Toqueville? This focuses rather little on politics and diplomacy at all, at least as history. Indeed (ironically for the authors' argument as well as yours), the passages I remember best of De Toqueville were those discussing what a negative impact slavery had had on southern culture. In general, as I don't need to tell you, he discusses a vast number of aspects of American society of the day, and while he is very interested in the impact that political institutions have on said society and vice versa, that's a little different from political history.

In short, I think there's pretty scant _textual_ evidence that these people are saying what you think they are. But you've experienced people that WERE saying that in the past, and at least so far, you're insisting that that's what these ones are saying. That is what I find troubling and rantlike about your argument on this thread.

I hope that makes more sense and causes less offense.

"actually as you said, I'm not crazy, I did read it, so in this case Semck is a smug ass-hat for no reason whatsoever as opposed to a bad reason"

No, actually I was wrong in my second post. The only person to single out diplomatic and political history was the university in defending itself, not the group. The group mentioned diplomatic (and not political) among other several other things that you completely ignored, whereas you explicitly inferred they meant only political and diplomatic.

Alas -- as so often, I was too generous.

Well, I go to UT, and I have taken the US history classes. Also the guy they quote, Jeremi Suri, is a brilliant scholar and a really nice guy. And he knows what he's talking about.

"Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT, said the report’s criticisms are “just not true.”

There’s no doubt that race, class and gender are themes in many course offerings, Suri said. But those themes are woven into a broader fabric that includes politics, diplomacy and other matters, he said.

“Our job is to prepare our students to understand the complexity of American society,” Suri said. “How could you teach race without politics? And how could you teach politics without race?”"

The man is right. He is a smart guy, believe him.

"My criticism was that you were reading in your preconceptions about what the people were talking about, so there was no use actually discussing it with you based on the text you had pasted.

"Your right, my experience in teaching and in grad school provided me with that knowledge, because I hear this argument all the time."

See?"

Actually as you just stated, it WAS in the article, they clearly stated military, diplomatic, political, religious etc.

So maybe someone else is using some preconceptions. And I'm not seeing how my understanding of this ongoing debate from working in the field is not acceptable in this discussion...

"Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address and De Toqueville. Lincoln's address is political history, that's true. But it's not the type of political history that impacted primarily the rich or the white. (The presence of this example, and my presumption that it was the source of your remark on political history, was the reason I said you were being silly about Lincoln before. I perhaps was confused about where you were getting that)."

"I perhaps was confused about where you were getting that"

helps to read I suppose...

"
And De Toqueville? This focuses rather little on politics and diplomacy at all, at least as history. Indeed (ironically for the authors' argument as well as yours), the passages I remember best of De Toqueville were those discussing what a negative impact slavery had had on southern culture. In general, as I don't need to tell you, he discusses a vast number of aspects of American society of the day, and while he is very interested in the impact that political institutions have on said society and vice versa, that's a little different from political history."

The writers of this report were obviously not talking about those parts, or they would be included in Race, no? You are telling me in all your wisdom people assign excerpts from textbooks but they don't assign excerpts from De Tocquevilles massive text?

"In short, I think there's pretty scant _textual_ evidence that these people are saying what you think they are."

This is what I thought they were saying

"American history courses at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University focus too much on race, class and gender and not enough on military, diplomatic, religious and intellectual matters, according to a new report."

Directly from the text. There you go, what am I misinterpreting here?

"That is what I find troubling and rantlike about your argument on this thread.

I hope that makes more sense and causes less offense. "

And all done while half reading the article, always impressive Semck. I thought you were leaving.

The history classes at UT are what you want them to be - you can choose which ones you want to take. This isn't high school where everyone takes the same class.

Unless they are referring to the "US history 1492-reconstruction" class that all the freshmen have to take. That class is well balanced, if inadequate (of course it is.. one semester for most of US history, taught to ignorant 18 year olds? Lol)

One thing I should point out, by the way, is that nothing about the summary you pasted suggests to me that the report is particularly useful. As you say, lectures are not covered, and it appears they used a rather crude metric in examining what was. So I wouldn't actually conclude that UT's history courses are necessarily particularly bad.

But your initial question was about what they meant by one particular line, and I think you're misinterpreting what they mean and reading a bunch of stuff based on negative past experiences.

Also, I meant to respond to this and forgot:

"Yet, to the people that wrote this report, it seems profoundly silly to suggest that the words of Frederick Douglass, Lucretia Mott, or Eugene V Debs only affected Race, Gender, or Class and not the larger American experience."

If that is in fact who is being counted as the overly race-based sources, then I agree, that is silly. Those would very interesting and worthy sources to read.

There's a lot of stuff you can take on religious history in the US here as well, from Jews to Muslims to Catholic/Protestant relations. I took a class on the history of US immigration law, and it obviously discussed race a bit, but was mostly focused on legal issues.

Also, the idea that we need to focus more on military matters is crazy. That's the stuff everyone knows anyway, you don't need to spend that much time on it. A coverage of the facts and the causes suffices. This is coming from a guy who loves military history, so you know I'm not biased.

Btw, what are you doing reading the Statesman, Santa?

"Actually as you just stated, it WAS in the article, they clearly stated military, diplomatic, political, religious etc."

No, they didn't state political. Read the quote you just pasted yourself.

"The writers of this report were obviously not talking about those parts, or they would be included in Race, no? You are telling me in all your wisdom people assign excerpts from textbooks but they don't assign excerpts from De Tocquevilles massive text?"

Almost none of De Toqueville, though, would be subject to the criticisms you're making. He was profoundly interested in how political institutions impacted society at all levels, and that's what he discussed. There is nothing at all to suggest that they want only to read his discussion of the aristocracy, say, and so nothing to support your "50%" remarks in the context of what they've said. That is just ranting.

"'American history courses at the University of Texas and Texas A&M University focus too much on race, class and gender and not enough on military, diplomatic, religious and intellectual matters, according to a new report.'

"Directly from the text. There you go, what am I misinterpreting here?"

Well, first of all, you're explicitly saying there are only two things they want to focus on, when in fact, they don't mention one of the two, and they mention several others as well, to start. Or is that not misrepresenting, somehow?

"I thought you were leaving."

Once you took my words as a personal attack, it was clear I had to explain better.

what are you guys even talking about lmao

By the way thank you for the interesting perspective and facts, Thucy. I don't mean to talk past you, lol. I'm not that surprised by your experience. It sounds similar to what I've see at other Texas public schools.

I thought one of the sillier things in the article was their desire to eliminate special topics courses. What's with that? I get not wanting people to be brainwashed by accident or whatever (not that I'm saying that's happening), but I don't really get wanting to limit academic freedom if people WANT to study a particular issue.

also, please allow me to unassumingly issue forth an "lol" for the three of us here talking about whatever the hell we're discussing at 1:15 on a saturday night.

webdiplomacy has some cool dudes.. that's for sure :P

Yeah special topics are awesome. Like I said, immigration history was an amazing class. I'm fairly sure they'd like to scrap it. Pssht

I was reading your every word, ThucThuc, in spite of semck and Santa talking past you. <3

So, what I'm getting out of this thread is that we have three very knowledgeable people basically agreeing on a topic while two of them ignore the third and manage to make their consensus into an argument because they don't like each other.

These forums are the best.

Be it hereby known that semck has discovered he has no good milk with which to make Kraft macaroni and cheese, and so intends forthwith to desert the field of combat, hopeful however that he has now made his point clear, and willing to let Santa have the last substantive word, at least for the next hour or two. He hopes that, by eating a popular American food with its roots in the racist 1930s, he is not advancing the narrative of white oppression in America, but he suspects he is. It is his hope that this discreditable episode will be excised by the considerate TAs at UT should he ever be so unfortunate as to merit a biography that is assigned in one of their history courses.

(Be it hereby known that he meant white oppression of other races, not oppression of the white race. In case that wasn't clear).

Amusing, ghug, but I don't actually dislike Santa, and I'm sorry if I've given the impression that I do.

lol semck