Specialists Weigh Common Social Studies Standards

Feeling that social studies has been sidelined by a test-driven focus on math and English/language arts, subject-matter specialists from more than a dozen states met last week with representatives of content-area groups to brainstorm ways to improve academic standards in that subject.

The two-day gathering in Charlotte, N.C., is the third convened in the last year and a half as states and social studies groups seek to re-establish the prominent role they feel their disciplines deserve in classroom. Social studies specialists from 18 states and officials of 15 social studies organizations have been taking part in the talks.

Organizers of the effort refer to it as work on “common state standards in social studies,” but participants’ discussions are not “predetermined” to produce a set of standards for state adoption, said Kathleen Swan, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Kentucky’s college of education, who...