Public Schools: The Trouble Is Teachers

A U.S. history teacher in Indiana says that she hates to teach the Grover Cleveland period — the time of civil-service reform, the Interstate Commerce Act, the Populist revolt, the panic of 1893, and the first attempt at a federal income tax — "because nothing happened." Another teacher, asked to ex plain the Monroe Doctrine, replied: "That was our attitude toward Europe plus Europe's attitude toward us." American history is taught badly, and teachers, rather than books or equipment, are mostly to blame. So say three Indiana University history professors who witnessed classroom performance in junior and senior high...