Few Wisconsin academics are satisfied with the level of college preparation exhibited by current high school graduates. Part of this lamentable situation is the result of forces beyond pedagogical control: the influence of television, the difficulty of maintaining order in the classroom. Nonetheless, part of the problem must be attributed to the expectations which teachers and school administrators have for student achievement.

This assumption first led David Hoeveler, chair of the UW-Milwaukee department from 1989 to 1992, to the question of standards for the teaching of history. Stimulated by the debate over the national standards proposed by Gary Nash and his associates, Hoeveler later applied for and received a grant from the Organization of American Historians to organize a conferenceheld in May 1997.

In the meantime, however, the debate over standards moved much closer to home. Following eighteen months of deliberations and public hearings, the Department of Public Instruction Social Studies Task force (one of four K12 subject areas) issued in October, 1996 a set of state standards, closely modeled after the standards issued by the National Council for the Social Studies. The Wisconsin version attracted the attention of Phyllis Krutch, a member of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, who passed them on to the National Council for History Education. Its Chair, Theodore Rabb of Princeton, thereupon circulated the standards to every history department in the state, with a request that chairs send their comments to the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Among others, Bruce Fetter, Chair at UW-M, responded to the call, condemning the draft standards document as "a collection of half-baked abstractions which require no effort on the part of students to master any particular events in history." Stung by these and other criticisms, the Task Force issued a revised -- and substantially improved -- set of standards, but by that time, the issues raised had become embroiled with state politics. John Benson, the superintendent of Public Instruction, one of the few Democrats still holding an at-large elected state office, was up for re-election. Three-term Republican Governor Tommy Thompson issued an executive order augmenting the existing task forces, and Lieutenant Governor Scott McCallum appointed Fetter co-chair of the expanded task force.

The expanded task force therefore overlapped the spring elections. The primary was held in February, always a time of low voter participation. School teachers turned out in large numbers and Benson was renominated to run against Barbara Cross, who had been his opponent four years earlier. Cross' educational values were the antithesis of Benson's; her standards included memorizing U.S. presidents in chronological order and the 72 counties of Wisconsin, and she was known as an opponent of teacher unions. Benson defeated her handily in the April run-off, after the first meeting of the expanded task force.

The Wisconsin Task Force

Before we review the deliberations of the expanded committee, let us examine the stakeholders who were involved. University historians were in a distinct minority, and if members of the profession are to play a major role in standards development, they must understand the concerns and vested interests of other players.

The original task force consisted of three groups which have traditionally controlled education policy in the Wisconsin public schools: the Department of Public Instruction; universitydepartments of education; and the organized teachers. The DPI sets rules for certification of teachers, requirements for high school graduation (which include three years of high school social studies), and conducts uniform examinations for students in grades 4,8 and 10. The schools of education, particularly the departments of curriculum and instruction, have traditionally served as the main authorities giving advice to the DPI. (The state legislature has traditionally played a relatively small role, mandating that students have some instruction on the history of American Indians and a year of civics). The teachers have been concerned with traditional teacher issues; conditions for teaching, salaries, and working conditions.

The expanded task force brought two additional stakeholders to the table: disciplinary professionals (Fetter and Hoeveler) and representatives of the state's 426 elected boards of education. The latter hire teachers, establish curricula, and levy taxes to pay for the schools. Local discontent with property taxes led to a transfer of most funding from the school districts to the state government, which now pays for 2/3 of per pupil instructional costs. Despite this diminished fiscal responsibility for the schools, the school board representatives, like the professional historians, proved to be dogged advocates of higher standards. Indeed, districts judge each other on how well their students do on state and other standardized tests.

In addition to expanding the task force, the governor's office also obtained an alternate set of standards prepared by Sally Kilgore for the Hudson Institute, called Raising Expectations: Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards, also known as "The Little Red Schoolhouse." These standards covered the four subject areas included in the initial task forces -- social studies, mathematics, science, and language arts. The social studies standards, however, were disciplinarily narrower than those of the first Wisconsin task force; they included only history and geography; while the Wisconsin and National Council for the Social Studies' versions detailed standards for seven disciplines and three interdisciplinary topics. The Little Red Schoolhouse standards for grade twelve, moreover, were keyed to the College Board's Advanced Placement program.

The job of the expanded task force was to arrive at a document that was acceptable to both the state educational establishment and to the governor's appointees. Before negotiations could begin, however, many of the new members had to be familiarized with existing statues, ordinances, and the division of authority. The members of the earlier task force were resigned to further changes in their original document, and the new members came quickly to appreciate the limits to which state wide standards could affect curriculum determined by locally elected school boards. Both sides immediately moved toward compromise and, at its first meeting, the expanded task force recommended that statewide assessment tests be moved from October to spring (otherwise to only statewide tests for high schoolers would havebeen administered two months into the sophomore year). The committee also recommended that the standards be identified for grades 4, 8 and 12 and asked the legislature for money for staff development.

The two subsequent meetings saw a similar level of compromise. Given the diversity of curriculum among Wisconsin's school districts and breadth of course offerings, the task force concluded that it could not limit standards to the two disciplines of history and geography advocated by "The Little Red Schoolhouse." It therefore began with the second version of the DPI standards and incorporated elements from the Hudson Institute document as well as tightening the language of the earlier document. School board members and the governor's representatives were particularly concerned about how the lay public would react to the standards, constantly warning against phrases that might evoke derision.

Cooperation between the two groups continued in the OAH-sponsored forum, which had been planned long before the political furor. Although university historians attacked existing standards and the general preparation of incoming freshmen, they listened respectfully to the members of the educational establishment who explained how the original standards were devised.

At the time of this writing, the standards of the social studies task force are ready for submission to the governor's committee, which is charged with establishing a single document to cover all four of the major divisions of the K12 curriculum. Once that is done the revised standards will be displayed in a series of public meetings. The governor has promised action on the amended standards in September/October 1997.

Looking for Generalizations

Despite the intense debate over national history standards, the interaction between Wisconsin academics and the social science curriculum comes very early in the standards debate at the state level. We will conclude with a few general principles for the consideration of our disciplinary colleagues.

1.If we are unhappy with the level of the students sent to us from the public schools, we must be prepared to spend more of our time with our colleagues in schools of education, with public school teachers, and with the politicians and school board members who control the purse strings. For example, when our department held this year's conference on the Standards, we invited all high school social studies teachers in the Milwaukee area. One session featured a panel discussion by teachers who had agreed to use the National in their classroom instruction during the year.

2.In order to be effective in the determination of new policy, wemust familiarize ourselves with the existing system. This includes the balance between state governments and local school districts, the powers of state departments of education, and the requirements for teacher certification, graduation, and funding.

3.However much we may be rewarded for writing for an audience of colleagues, we must increase our interaction with the teachers whom we have helped prepare for the schools. They are members of the same discipline and are capable of doing a better job of training students than they now do. Indeed, academic historians also ought to concern themselves with the needs of their former students now teaching. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, for example, has established an "Ask History" site on its web page in order to respond to teacher requests for historiographic and bibliographic questions.

4.We must establish closer linkages with our colleagues in the schools of education and in the state education departments. They deal with situations we can not even imagine. Indeed, they may be able to give us advice on pedagogical matters. With them, we might be able to negotiate entry of some of our graduate students into school jobs.