Should the AHA take a stronger role in shaping high-school history curricula? An article by Robert Orrill and Linn Shapiro (History Cooperative link; Boston Globe story) in the new AHR suggests as much. It's an interesting article and worth your reading.

I know we here use Teaching American History funds to bring university and high-school history teachers together to (what looks to me like) good effect: we discuss recent historiography and research on a historical topic and consider how it affects teaching of the state history standards at the 8th and 11th grade level.

The authors of the AHR article make a case for"the AHA's [historical] leadership in promoting evidence-based reflection about the condition and future course of history education in the United States," and argue that"only the discipline can bring substantive depth and a spirit of critical inquiry to conversations about the direction of school history."

The AHR will hold a forum on this proposition on History Cooperative during the first two weeks of September.