Title: U.S. history: How teaching America's past varies across the country - CBS News
Headings: 50 states, 50 different ways of teaching America's past
50 states, 50 different ways of teaching America's past
Slavery and civil rights movement
Cause of the Civil War
Racism and white supremacy
Politics and other challenges
Role of teachers

Content: In North Carolina's state standards, "immigration of Africans to the American South" is mentioned as part of a lesson on why people move from place to place. CBS News contributor and author of "How to Be An Antiracist," Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, said referring to Africans as immigrants or as immigrating to the United States is not accurate because they were brought by force. "And certainly did not want to come to the United States in chains," he said. Kendi is also the founding director of the Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center at American University. As for the states that do not—or only briefly mention—slavery or the civil rights movement, Dr. Tina Heafner, president of the National Council for the Social Studies, said this does not necessarily mean students are not learning about these topics. Some state standards focus on the process of learning and development of skills, leaving it to the local school districts to determine what specific historical figures and topics are taught. For example, while New York's social studies state standards span more than 150 pages and offers details on teaching "the development of slavery as a racial institution," Delaware's social studies standards are just five pages and focus on developing skills like comparing "competing historical narratives." But Heafner, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said having topics like slavery and the civil rights movement in standards makes it more likely to be taught in the classroom. "When teachers think about what they have to teach, they turn to the curriculum standards as their guideline," she said. " So the fact that they are not there could give a perception that is not something that is absolutely essential that they have to address."