The Teaching American History Grant program is a discretionary grant program funded under Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The goal of the program is to support programs that raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of American history. The program supports competitive grants to local educational agencies, in partnership with institutions of higher education, nonprofit history or humanities organizations, libraries, or museums. URL: www.ed.gov
Updated 3/3/10
SUMMARY
We urge Congress to fund the Department of Education’s Teaching American History grants program at a level of $120 million in Fiscal Year 2011.
FUNDING OVERVIEW
The Teaching American History grants program is funded at $119.0 million in the current fiscal year (FY 2010) ending September 30, 2010. This level represents essentially flat funding over recent years, including FY 2009 ($118.9 million) and FY 2008 ($117.9 million).
The U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History grants program is funded under the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill. The FY 2010 Labor/HHS/Education bill (H.R. 3293) was enacted on 12/16/09 as one of six appropriations bills rolled into the year-end Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-117).
See also: National Coalition for History report on FY 2010 TAH funding
FY 2011 BUDGET REQUEST
The Obama Administration’s FY 2011 Budget Request for the U.S. Department of Education consolidates 38 K-12 programs, including the Teaching American History grant program, into 11 new programs that “emphasize competitive funding, accountability for outcomes and flexibility in approaches, and use of evidence to get results.” The President’s budget would align FY 2011 funding with the Department’s priorities for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). According to the FY 2011 Budget Summary released by the Department of Education, Teaching American History would be rolled into a new program called “Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education”, along with 7 other pre-existing (and formerly independent) programs with combined total funding of $226.1 million for FY 2010: Excellence in Economic Education, Arts in Education, Foreign Language Assistance, Academics for American History and Civics, Close-up Fellowships, and two civic education programs (We the People, and Cooperative Education Exchange).
The FY 2011 Budget recommends $265.0 million in total funding for “Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education”, an (apparent) increase of $38.9 million over the FY 2010 combined appropriations for the established programs contained under this new umbrella. Specific funding allocations for FY 2011 are not provided for individual programs (as they have been in the past), suggesting that the Department would eliminate Teaching American History as a free-standing program. At this time, the Administration’s intentions to continue, increase, or decrease funding for the Teaching American History grant program are unknown.
In lieu of individual field specific programs, the FY 2011 Budget would appear to consolidate the 8 existing programs into three new programs that would support: (1) “competitive grants to high-need local educational agencies”, (2) “State educational agencies in partnership with one or more high-need local educational agencies” and (3) “other entities in partnership with one or more high-need local educational agencies, to develop and expand innovative practices to improve teaching and learning in the arts, foreign languages, civics and government, history, geography, economics and financial literacy, and other subjects”.
SUMMARY
The Teaching American History program is a discretionary grant program funded under Title II-C, Subpart 4 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
111th CONGRESS
Congress and the Administration are undertaking serious work on ESEA reauthorization in 2010.
OVERSIGHT
The following Congressional committees have jurisdiction over TAH (ESEA) authorization:
