THE NATION'S FUTURE – AT 10:12 P.M. ET:  It's hard to believe this, but I'm afraid it's the trend.  From Fox News:

He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.

State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.

"We are certainly not trying to go away from American history," Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, told Fox News. "What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where students are connected to it, where they see the big idea, where they are able to make connections and draw relationships between parts of our history and the present day."

As the North Carolina curriculum stands now, ninth-grade students take world history, 10th-graders study civics and economics and 11th-graders take U.S. history going back to the country's founding.

Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.

Math, science and English classes are also getting an update.

COMMENT:  Hey, who needs Lincoln when you've got a cool guy like Lenin? 

And I'd just love to know what "big idea" Ms. Garland is talking about.   Why do I think "global warming" will be part of it?  And American imperialism?  And trans fats?

Wave of the future, unless we stop it, starting at the local level.

February 3, 2010