It was announced last week that Owen County Schools will be the recipient of a $997,200 federal grant to improve the quality of American history education. The three-year project is designed to make teachers more knowledgeable and understanding of traditional American history through intensive, on-going professional development.
Under President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act there has been significant emphasis placed on math and literacy. “Yet, with studies showing less than one-quarter of American students proficient in (history and citizenship), far too few U.S. students are learning the lessons vital to life in our democratic society,” said Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.
Glenn Manns, a history specialist with Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative (OVEC), will help Owen County with the implementation of this grant. He explained the professional development as a triad model with a week-long summer seminar, network meetings with college professors from special content areas and classroom visits when Manns will assist teachers in enforcing material. “It’s very well thought out and well-designed,” he said.
This program is “specifically designed as teacher development so they have a better ability to teach American history,” Manns said. Five teachers from Owen County High School will have the opportunity to travel to historically significant places in New York and Washington D.C. where they will learn first-hand what they will teach to their students.
Through a grant received by the elementary and middle schools, Manns made a connection with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, a New York institute that boasts a collection of more than 80,000 primary documents. In addition to this, the Institute organizes seminars and enrichment programs for educators, and sponsors lectures by eminent historians.
“The Gilder Lehrman Institute has a good reputation for traditional American history,” said Manns. “They have speakers like the Kennedy’s, Gordon Wood (of Brown University) and Kenneth Jackson (of Columbia University) at their seminars.”
Manns says that as a mentor to teachers he will help them “develop relationships with professors” and other historians.
To do this, Manns says the grant will fund 10 slots two years in a row for other seminars. “A teacher could go to Cambridge to study the Cold War, for example,” he said. “It’s intense, rigorous content knowledge enhancement.”
For Owen County students, this grant means teachers will have better content knowledge and will be trained in History Alive — an interactive online teaching tool. “Teachers will be able to communicate, ‘Here’s what real history is,’” Manns said.
Additionally, students will have the opportunity to participate in AP History Saturdays when college professors are invited to high schools to lecture on different aspects of American history.
Owen County’s project will be evaluated with a “quasi-experimental design,” Manns said. Schools within the grant will be compared to Jessamine and Powell County schools — Kentucky schools that are not receiving the Teaching American History grant.
Manns says he would like to stress that this grant would not have been possible without the cooperation and help of the Owen County Board of Education. OVEC assisted with the preparation of grant material, but since the organization can only submit one grant proposal, Owen County accepted the role of fiscal agent.
That means all grant money comes directly to the county and OVEC handles the physical implementation.
“It’s a lot of money, but we have to make sure we’re getting results,” Manns said. “Owen County sees the benefits of this.”

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