Lauren Gallant is committed to making social justice issues part of her U.S. history teaching. An avid user of Teaching Tolerance materials, she's always in search of tools "that help illuminate the subject matter and the human condition." But the Simi Valley High School, Calif., teacher has a typical challenge: There is little time for…

Argues that national policy has imposed on American public education four different standards of literacy, each one more demanding than the one preceding it--signature, recitation, comprehension, and application. Suggests, also, that each standard, which had its root cause in the nation's economy and social structure, was initially applied only to…