ABSTRACT
America's schools may well be remembered as one of the high points in the culture wars of the 1990s. More than two years after a revised set of rigorous standards won broad assent from history educators, some of the belligerents nurse bad feelings. By the late 1960s, advocates of social studies transformed themselves from a group of advocates into a formidable power within American public education, led by progressive ideologues who berated the study of history as little more than fact-grubbing. Today's history-minded reformers, led by the National Council for History Education, do not deny the importance of teaching students how to evaluate the issues that confront contemporary society. An equally impressive curriculum framework in history and social science has been proposed for Massachusetts, and similar reforms have been debated in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and other states.
