Changing the Subject in the School Wars: An American Historical Association Research Team Perspective

What on earth are our school children learning about US history?"At the turn of the 2020s, American pundits posed the question rhetorically-and then proceeded to answer it, without evidence, and in service of partisan tastes.On the one hand were progressive commentators who declared that the typical US history curriculum was a whitewashed fable that suppressed uncomfortable truths about slavery and race. 1 On the other were conservative activists who claimed the opposite-that today's educators, consumed by a hypercritical obsession with race, taught children to hate their country. 2High-profile initiatives like the New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project, President Donald Trump's 1776 Commission, and a wave of state-level prohibitions 1 For commentary and analysis from liberals and progressives, see Valerie Strauss, "It's Back in the Age of ' Alternative Facts': 'Lies My Teacher Told Me: