History, Natural History & the Arts
The NYS Department of Education is about to hire a new State Archivist to replace Christine Ward who left the position in August.
News about the change has only come via a single announcement at www.statejobsny.com, which provided just one week for applications (that week ended Monday). [Read more…] about NYS Hiring New State Archivist in Virtual Secrecy
The Board of Regents adopted the New York State K-12 Social Studies Framework at their April 2014 meeting. Since then, the K-12 Social Studies Resource Toolkit project has begun and the creation of a field guide to provide guidance on the instructional impacts of the Framework is underway.
In addition to this work, the State Education Department (SED) is also thinking about how best to restructure the Global History and Geography and United States History and Government Regents examinations. In tackling this task, SED is looking for help informing their decision making. In order to gain the valuable feedback educators in the field can provide, four questions are being asked: [Read more…] about Educators: State Ed Department Needs Your Feedback
The NYS Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education’s second Uncommon Approaches to the Common Core conference will be held in Albany on Tuesday, August 12, and Wednesday, August 13, 2014.
Proposals for an interactive lab in one of six curriculum areas are invited: The Arts, English Language Arts, Math, Science, Language other than English (LOTE), or Social Studies. Lessons or curriculum used during the lab must be aligned to the Common Core Learning Standards and must demonstrate inquiry through the use of primary sources and/or other cultural resources, such as historic objects, multimedia objects, maps, works of art, or natural resources such as plants, soil or rocks. [Read more…] about Uncommon Approaches to the Common Core Event
The NYS Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education has announced Uncommon Approaches to the Common Core, the second conference bringing together classroom teachers and educators from all types of cultural institutions to support implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards. The conference will take place in Albany on August 12 and 13, 2014. [Read more…] about Event: Uncommon Approaches to the Common Core
Should New York students learn about the history of their own state in New York schools?
The question has not been resolved. The State Education Department has been seeking reactions to the latest draft of the New York State Common Core K-12 Social Studies Framework.
The current social studies curriculum dates from the 1990’s. A draft revision completed in 2012 was discussed a number of times in this New York State History Blog over the past couple of years. [Read more…] about Common Core: New York History in New York Schools
Paul Grondahl at the Albany Times Union is reporting that the New York State Library is rapidly discarding tens of thousands of items in the stacks of the old State Library beneath the State Education Building.
State Librarian Bernard Margolis, who is overseeing the reduction of the stacks, blames years of State Library budget cuts and an increase in state Education Department paperwork. Opposition from State Library employees, who remain anonymous out of fear for their jobs, has gone unheeded.
Here are some of the details from Paul Grondahl: [Read more…] about NYS Library Clearing Thousands of Items From Stacks
It’s true. November is New York State History Month.
In 1997, New York’s legislature added Section 57.02 to the state’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Law and 1) designated November as New York State History Month, 2) defined the purpose of the month as the celebration of state history and the recognition of the contributions of state and local historians, and 3) authorized the Education Department to undertake projects to recognize the month (while the legislation failed to identify any specific projects, it did suggest student essay contests as one possibility). [Read more…] about Bob Weible: Is NYS History Month Dead?
April 11, 2013 marks the 94th anniversary of Governor Al Smith’s signing the law that established New York’s system of local government Historians (Laws of 1919, Ch. 181). Smith was a history-minded leader.
As an Assemblyman, he had sponsored the bill in 1911 that moved the State Historian’s office to the State Education Department and initiated the state’s local government records program. In 1919, his first year as governor, he was preparing to reorganize and modernize state government.
His approval of the Historians’ Law was a milestone event. New York was, and still is, the only state in the nation to declare preservation and dissemination of local history to be a public purpose so important that it is embodied in statute.
[Read more…] about NY Public Historians: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
If you have an opinion on whether or not New York State and local history should be taught in our public schools, now is the time to speak up.
As noted on September 17 here at the online news magazine New York History, the State Education Department has released a draft version of the “New York State Common Core K-8 Social Studies Framework” for review and comment until October 11 [online]. There is a link there for people to submit comments. After revision, the document will go to the Board of Regents for adoption as state education policy. [Read more…] about Should We Teach NY State and Local History?
The draft “New York State Common Core K-8 Social Studies Framework” has been issued and is available online [pdf]. The New York State Education Department is inviting comments until October 11, 2012. [Read more…] about Comments Sought on NY Social Studies Curriculum