Today, free public kindergarten for five-year-old children is available in every state and community throughout the United States, and public education is routinely referred to as K-12. But kindergarten did not start out this way. Kindergartens in the United States once served children as young as three and four years old. In fact, today's…

The social studies curriculum travels through time and space and is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. To an outsider, the social studies curriculum is a single line on a program of studies, 45 minutes of a student's school day. Those on the inside, however, know that the field covers history, geography, civics, economics, and much…

In this article, I describe a recent scandal involving collusion between officials at the American Psychological Association (APA) and the U.S. Department of Defense, which appears to have enabled the torture of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The scandal is a relevant, complex, and engaging case that teachers can use in a…

On Saturday, January 3, 1863, Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward sent a letter to John D. Defrees, superintendent of Public Printing, asking that 500 copies of a "circular and proclamation" be printed. The letter also gave specific instructions as to what type of paper was to be used, the layout, and when the department wanted the…

After the end of World War I, Congress enacted a bill that would reward military veterans for their service. The bill provided the veterans cash bonuses that would be paid starting in 1945. But as the nation settled into the Great Depression these veterans began to clamor for payment of their bonuses. In May of 1932, and estimated 15,000 veterans…

Many policies and initiatives have been proposed or implemented to address the unique needs of military families who face special challenges while supporting the service of their military member(s). Some of those policies and initiatives have sought to focus on military-connected children (MCCs) and the particular academic challenges they face.…

William Faulkner famously wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." He would not be surprised to learn that Americans, 150 years after the Civil War began, are still getting it wrong. Did America's most divisive war start over slavery or states' rights? The author says that too many people--including educators--get it wrong. The author…

In this article, the author discusses the shift from "scholarships" to "financial aid" which was initiated by the federal government during World War II. On June 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944--commonly known as the G.I. Bill of Rights--one provision of which gave veterans financial…

Though people now take the idea of women in the military for granted, in the 1940s it was a vigorously debated suggestion. Men protected their country; women stayed at home. Because of the conflict over whether women should serve in the army, Congress compromised by creating the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). This article describes the…

The writ of habeas corpus has been a critical tool for balancing the rights of individuals with the government's responsibility to protect the nation's welfare. In this article, the authors discuss the writ of habeas corpus and how it affects the federal government and hundreds of prisoners who are held as enemy combatants. Elementary, middle, and…

The American public often wonders what goes on in the White House and how domestic and foreign policy are made. Designed for use by the research and teaching communities, whitehousetapes.org provides teachers and students the opportunity to learn more about how American presidents have made decisions and exercised leadership during pivotal moments…

This book tracks the dramatic outcomes of the federal government's growing involvement in higher education between World War I and the 1970s, and the conservative backlash against that involvement from the 1980s onward. Using cutting-edge analysis, Christopher Loss recovers higher education's central importance to the larger social and political…

In this article, the author reflects on the events that took place in the year 1972. The author was a junior at the University of New Mexico back then, refusing to eat or buy grapes and lettuce, picketing grocers who did not carry United Farm Workers of America produce. He and his buddies cast their votes against granting Richard Nixon a second…

During the first half of the 19th century, the United States grew from a nation confined to the Atlantic seaboard to a country on the verge of becoming a global power. One factor prompting this growth was the United States' growing intellectual, economic, and strategic interests in the Pacific Ocean. These growing interests were fueled by the…

The author worked in Nigeria for eleven years, for some of the time as a teacher, and for part of the time as a school inspector. In this article the author reflects upon the progress of the Nigerian Federal Inspectorate of Education, its inception, including the reasons for its formation, its early history and that of other educational…