"One needs not erase history. One needs only fail to teach one generation of children.

[abqtommy]

Fail with two, and the destruction widens." This is a line of dialogue from C.J. Cherryh in her book HAMMERFALL that I am now reading and not for the first time.

This is the first time these particular words have leapt out at me to the extent that I have
to make a notation of the words and page number on the conveniently placed blank
page at the front of the book. There's always something new to learn. Will you join me?

[Shell_Seas]

1. In America, we failed to teach several generations, which is why we are where we are today.

[JT45242]

2. One of the consequences of the "Accountability movement" in education

As a former teacher and currently an educational researcher, I can say that there was a need to raise standards in many places that led to the accountability movement in education.

HOWEVER.... since what gets tested will be what gets taught, it is very telling that civics and social studies were not mandated by the W Bush admin at the federal level although testing in ELA, math, and science (less frequent but still there) were included in federal testing mandates for report cards on schools. So, many states stopped (or never started testing social studies) because there was no federal mandate to do it (plus the mandated testing wasn't properly funded by the feds anyway, so it would have been an additional drain of dollars from education).

That was around 2001...it has been a generation of kids for whom social studies has been de-emphasized in schools.