About the Teaching American History Program and Ever Growing Freedom
The Teaching American History Grant program is a discretionary grant
program funded by The No Child Left Behind Act. The goal of the program
is to support programs that raise student achievement by improving
teachers' knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of American
history. Learn more about this program at the U.S. Department of
Education TAH website.
“Ever Growing Freedom” is a three-year venture among five partners to provide teachers with the content specific knowledge they need to enrich student learning about American history. It goes beyond merely presenting history content to teachers and, instead, goes into the classroom to help teachers in three high-need districts bring best practices history instruction directly to their students. Princeton City School District is the applicant and the partners are Fairfield City Schools, Middletown City Schools, the Ohio Social Studies Resource Center, and Miami University Hamilton.
Our goal is to meet the two GPRA performance indicators of improving teacher and student knowledge of history. This program will objectively evaluate teacher content knowledge by administering nationally validated history tests to teachers before and after their participation and similarly by testing students through Ohio State tests.
The core of our program is a three year curriculum targeted to 4th, 5th, and 8th grade teachers and founded upon the recognized milestones and movements in the American experience focusing on Colonial, Revolutionary, Constitutional, and Civil War history. This will include two field trips to enrich learning and aid in recruitment and retention.
The second main component of Ever Growing Freedom, a Lesson Plan Improvement Program, has been designed specifically to assure that the history content is brought into classrooms in the most effective way, to implement transformative structural changes in the teaching of history, and to sustain the benefits of the program beyond the life of the grant.
