U.S. schools “are failing to teach a sufficiently complex and comprehensive history of Reconstruction,” write the three authors of a recent report produced by the nonprofit Zinn Education Project.
Ana Rosado, Gideon Cohn-Postar and Mimi Eisen came to their findings through analysis of such criteria as state standards, course requirements and district-level social studies curricula from 2019-21, while also surveying elementary, middle school and high school teachers across the country.
In their report, Rosado, Cohn-Postar and Eisen advocate for adjusting curricular timelines to create sufficient space for Reconstruction.
“Reconstruction should be taught extensively at multiple grade levels, and not as a bookend unit at the start or end of the school year,” they write. “Arranging units to accommodate it more centrally can help mitigate this timing issue.”
To read “Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction,” click here.