California

 

Reconstruction Vignette

On Oct. 30, 1871, the New York Herald shared news of a massacre in Los Angeles the week prior. A police officer and a civilian had intervened in a feud between two Chinese mutual benefit association leaders and were fatally shot. A mob of roughly 500 people responded by robbing and murdering 19 Chinese residents, including children, in what became one of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history. The dispute that day in Old Chinatown may have been the immediate catalyst for the massacre, but anti-Chinese sentiments grew dramatically alongside increases in Chinese immigration to California. Many local officials and civilians alike resorted to discriminatory laws and violence to maintain a white supremacist social order and bar Chinese residents from the benefits of citizenship.

Source: Chronicling America

California

Standards Overview

Coverage of Reconstruction: Partial
ZEP Standards Rubric Score: 4.5 out of 10

The coverage of Reconstruction in California’s standards is partial, and their content is mediocre. The California State Board of Education formally adopted the current History-Social Science Standards in 1998 and updated them in 2000. In 2016, the Board of Education released the History-Social Science Framework, which is meant to “provide guidance to educators, parents, and publishers, to support implementing California content standards.” While California has not updated its content standards since 1998, this 2016 H-SS Framework is the most up-to-date guidance for the state’s history teachers. The framework serves as the criteria for approving and adopting new curricular materials.

According to the standards and the framework, students are supposed to first and most fully learn about Reconstruction in grade 8. Reconstruction returns as a topic in grade 11, but only briefly and as part of a unit on the Civil War and the rise of industrialization.

Grade 8

In grade 8, the state standards place an emphasis on Black people’s mobility, the broad aims and effects of Reconstruction, the Freedmen’s Bureau, the rise of the KKK, and the significance of the Reconstruction Amendments. The standards do not mention Black people’s grassroots political mobilization or Black people’s struggles for control of land and labor, though perhaps these might be covered under the “aims of Reconstruction” section. While the standards ask students to “describe the Klan’s effects,” the standards do not mention terrorism, white supremacy, or electoral corruption.

The 2016 Framework is much more comprehensive and provides substantive guidance on teaching Reconstruction. For grade 8, the framework emphasizes Black people's experiences, stating that students should understand the impact of Reconstruction on Black families and communities, as well as the importance of Black political mobilization to expanding political rights and social welfare programs. 

Rachel Reinhard, director of the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project, provided more insight: “Reinforced by now disbanded state history tests, the arc of the 8th grade course has emphasized the founding of the nation through the Civil War. Since the adoption of the new framework, grade 8 teachers have been encouraged to take seriously a longer timeline that includes Reconstruction and backwards plan from that meaningful end point.”

Grade 11

Mention of Reconstruction in high school U.S. history state standards is limited to the charge that students should “Examine the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction” on the United States’ emergence as a world power at the end of the 19th century.

The grade 11 framework is more comprehensive than the standards and emphasizes engagement with the legacies of Reconstruction, its successes and failures, and the promise and shortcomings of the Reconstruction Amendments. 

Reinhard shared further insight on this framework, and how it builds on the grade 8 course: “The 11th grade course emphasizes the United States during the 20th century. As a result, discussions of Reconstruction generally emerge as a review of 8th grade content. With the adoption of the framework, 11th grade teachers have been encouraged to engage the question, ‘How did we get here?’, which would invite discussion of the 21st century as well as historical events prior to the 20th century that best help students make sense of the contemporary moment.”

Educator Experiences

Teachers who responded to our survey expressed frustration with the standards’ minimal coverage of Reconstruction. Teachers did not reference the more detailed Reconstruction content contained in the 2016 framework, which remains optional. As Destiny Andrews, an elementary school teacher from Suisun City, explained, teaching Reconstruction when it is not a required part of the curriculum can expose teachers to criticism from “conservative members of the community that have an issue with teachers who stray from the curriculum.” While most respondents reported that they were able to bring in outside teaching modules and primary sources to supplement the inadequate instructional resources they received, more could be done to institutionalize teaching Reconstruction history. 

Several teachers expressed concern with the timing of the unit. The placement of Reconstruction at the end of the grade 8 curriculum meant that, as one high school teacher explained, teachers “either don’t get to the content or fly past it in favor of more contemporary topics.” The end of the year is also often a standardized testing period, further constraining the time that teachers can devote to Reconstruction. 

Several responses mentioned that a more detailed treatment of Reconstruction in the grade 11 U.S. history course could lead to more “in depth analysis and connection to existing issues throughout U.S. history.” Currently, high school teachers are under such time pressure to make it through certain content that Reconstruction often falls through the cracks. Even educators who choose to prioritize it struggle to spend more than a “a day or two” on the topic.

 

Assessment

California’s state standards for teaching Reconstruction are promising, but most of the strongest content is contained in the optional 2016 framework, rather than the required standards that do not mention white supremacy or Black grassroots organizing. The framework, however, foregrounds Black people’s experiences and emphasizes the legacies of Reconstruction, including both the violent repression and the rich tradition of Black political activism. Particularly welcome is the framework’s emphasis on Reconstruction as “a watershed event in American history” and the following discussion question it poses to students: “How did Reconstruction redefine what it meant to be an American?” 

It is unclear if or how districts and teachers are using the framework to guide their curricula. Additionally, the standards and framework would be improved by explicit mention of white supremacist terrorism, and Black people’s struggles to redefine freedom and equality and gain control of their own land and labor.

The placement of the topic at the very end of middle school social studies during what is commonly a testing window, and briefly at the beginning of the grade 11 U.S. history course, is a recipe for overlooking Reconstruction. The topic should either be moved earlier in the grade 8 course, or made into a standalone unit in grade 11 to ensure it is not glossed over. Preferably both.

Teaching Reconstruction effectively requires centering Black people’s struggles to redefine freedom and equality and gain control of their own land and labor during and after the Civil War. Any discussion of Reconstruction must also grapple with the role of white supremacist terrorism in the defeat of Reconstruction and the negative and positive legacies of the era that persist to this day.