Here is a link to the report's page on the Illinois standards:
http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/WH%206-06%20Illinois.pdf

And here's a link to the full report:
http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=356&pubsubid=1250#1250

For MUCH more about the poor state of "social studies" in Illinois schools, see this page on our website:

Illinois Loop: Social Studies
http://www.illinoisloop.org/socstud.html

(If you haven't been to the Loop website in a while, take a look! We've put a lot of effort into making it even more useful and easier to navigate!)

-- Kevin

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(PRESS RELEASE ANNOUNCING THE RELEASE OF THE FULL STUDY)

Tuesday, June 6, 2006
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

For Immediate Release:

In state academic standards, world history gets lost in translation States' standards show scant enthusiasm for teaching students about the world

WASHINGTON, D.C.--A new report released today by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute finds that at a time of rapid globalization, most states don't even try to provide young Americans with a solid grounding in world history.

Renowned historian and foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead, the Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, conducted this first ever review of states' academic standards for K-12 world history--the blueprints that outline what students are expected to know in a given subject. Fully two-thirds of states earn a "D" or an "F," while only eight (California, Massachusetts, Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, New York, Minnesota, and South Carolina) earn an "A."

"At a time when the United States faces threats and competitors around the globe, and when our children's future is more entangled than ever with world developments, our schools ought not treat world history so casually," said Institute president Chester E. Finn, Jr. "Nations that once were little more than curiosities to most Americans have transformed themselves into places of vital interest and concern. No one can be considered adequately prepared for life in the 21st century unless they understand the history and culture of the world's major civilizations. The National Geographic Society recently reported that students don't think learning about the world is all that important. Sadly, state officials don't seem to think so, either. It's as if Americans were wearing blinders--and happy about it."

Mead finds that only a handful of states require students to pass a world history test to graduate or get promoted to the next grade. Given educators' preoccupation with subjects tested under the No Child Left Behind Act, this only increases the chances that world history will be "narrowed" out of the curriculum.

"A working knowledge of world history is socially, politically, economically, and culturally indispensable for young Americans," said Mead. "The failure of public schools to teach world history amounts to denying equal opportunity to our most vulnerable populations. Millions of low-income and minority students are being denied basic cultural and economic rights." Several problems were ubiquitous in the standards of poorly performing states:

-- Little or no historical content;

-- Alternatively, so much content that teachers couldn't possibly begin to cover it all; [We sure don't have that problem here in Illinois! -- Kevin]

-- An excessive focus on modern European history and neglect of significant non-Western cultures in Latin America and Asia; [I have to vehemently disagree: in my experience it's rare to find a K-8 school that teaches anything at all about Europe after the Renaissance. Even at the high school level, inclusion of anything about the last 400 years of Europe is disappearing in required classes in some schools. [Example: New Trier -- Kevin]

-- Alternatively, an extreme multiculturalism that treats all nations and cultures as equally significant;

-- Standards that are buried in the murky non-subject of "social studies."

-- Standards that provide students with no logical timeline, relying instead on trendy "themes" without regard to the story of history. [That describes the Illinois standards! -- Kevin]

Recommendations:

States can take several actions to improve their world history standards, including:

-- Follow the lead of high-scoring states, using the A-rated standards as a model;

-- Emphasize the importance of world history by requiring students to pass a test in the subject to graduate, and/or hold schools accountable for their pupils' performance in the subject; and

-- Build the state's high-school world history program around the excellent Advanced Placement syllabus in this subject.

Complete state and exam reviews, as well as the full text of the report, can be found at http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=356&CFID=6642400&CFTOKEN=76632561