Knowledge of U.S. History
- From the mid-1990s to 2014, eighth graders’ history achievement improved. The percentage of students in the eighth grade scoring at the proficient achievement level or above in U.S. history increased by a statistically significant margin. In 2014, 18% of all eighth-grade students demonstrated proficiency, up from 14% in 1994. At the other end of the achievement scale, a smaller share of students scored at the below basic level in 2014 than in 1994. However, reflecting the slow upward trend of achievement, there was no statistically significant change from 2010 to 2014 (the two most recent assessments, as of January 2016) in the share of students scoring at either of these levels (Indicator I-05a).
- Fourth and 12th graders were most recently tested in 2010. The share of students demonstrating proficiency in American history increased by a statistically significant margin only among the fourth graders (Indicator I-05b). In 2010, 20% of fourth-grade students demonstrated proficiency, up from 17% in 1994. In both 1994 and 2010, a greater proportion of fourth-grade students demonstrated proficiency in U.S. history than did 12th graders.
- In every testing year, a substantial majority of children in the assessed grades failed to demonstrate proficiency in U.S. history. The absence of long-term trend data prevents a systematic evaluation of how recent a phenomenon this is, but research reveals that young people’s ignorance of U.S. history has been a source of public concern since the beginning of the 20th century.2
Endnotes
- 2Sam Wineburg, “Crazy for History,” Journal of American History 90, no. 4 (March 2004): 1,401–14.
I-05a: History Achievement of Eighth Graders as Measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1994–2014*
* Percentages for each year may not sum to 100 due to rounding.
** Value statistically significantly different (p < .05) from 2014.
† Accommodations not permitted for English language learners and students with disabilities; such accommodations permitted in later years.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress, The Nation’s Report Card: History 2014: Achievement Levels, http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hgc_2014/#history/achievement, accessed 12/15/2015
Although it was introduced later and is given less frequently than the reading assessment (see the indicators under the topics “Trends in Basic Reading Skills among School-Age Children” and “Reading Proficiency Relative to that in Science and Math”), the NAEP for U.S. history also supplies data describing change over time in students’ knowledge of a core humanities subject. (For information on state policies regarding the teaching of history at the precollegiate level, consult the National History Education Clearinghouse’s Fall 2011 update to its 2010 Report on the State of History Education.) The NAEP history scores are reported here by achievement level.
For an explanation of the achievement scale and detailed information about the competencies associated with each achievement level, see http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ushistory/achieve.aspx. For readers interested in detailed tabulations of student scores by gender and race/ethnicity, as well as their changes over time, the NAEP report card provides an interactive tool at http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hgc_2014/#history/achievement#groups.
I-05b: History Achievement of Fourth and 12th Graders as Measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1994 and 2010
* Value statistically significantly different (p < .05) from 2010.
** Accommodations not permitted for English language learners and students with disabilities; such accommodations permitted in later years.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress, The Nation’s Report Card: U.S. History 2010, NCES 2011-468 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2011), 2 fig. C.
Although it was introduced later and is given less frequently than the reading assessment (see the indicators under the topics “Trends in Basic Reading Skills among School-Age Children” and “Reading Proficiency as Compared with that in Science and Math”), the NAEP for U.S. history also supplies data describing change over time in students’ knowledge of a core humanities subject. (For information on state policies regarding the teaching of history at the precollegiate level, consult the National History Education Clearinghouse’s Fall 2011 update to its 2010 Report on the State of History Education.) The NAEP history scores are reported here by achievement level.
For an explanation of the achievement scale and detailed information about the competencies associated with each achievement level, see http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ushistory/achieve.aspx. For readers interested in detailed tabulations of student scores by gender and race/ethnicity, as well as their changes over time, the NAEP report card provides an interactive tool at http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hgc_2014/#history/achievement#groups.
