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Controversy Points To Difficulty In Creating National Standards

1994

The National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA under the guidance of the National Council for History Standards issues high school standards for teaching history. The standards, developed with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the U.S. Department of Education, are criticized by Lynne Cheney, former head of NEH, who denounces them as “politicized history” and argues that they are not positive enough about the United States’ achievements. As a result of the controversy, many states develop their own standards for history and American government.