New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey and Commissioner of Education William L. Librera asked Achieve to review the state’s September 2003 draft academic standards in social studies. In January 2004, Achieve delivered preliminary findings to the state Department of Education and to the governor’s office. In February 2004, officials at the Department of Education asked Achieve to review a new draft of the social studies standards that had been revised, partly in response to Achieve’s January recommendations. Our second review was dated February 27, 2004.

The February 2004 draft social studies standards were a considerable improvement over New Jersey’s previous 1996 standards. The revised edition presented main headings for both U.S. and world history in chronological order; divided world history content between middle and high school to allow more in-depth treatment of the modern world; integrated New Jersey and U.S. history in an engaging, understandable fashion; generally succeeded in balancing U.S. and world history, major eras of human history and Western and other major civilizations; placed a premium on the civic education of citizens and; was written in clear language that was accessible to educators, parents, the public, policymakers and the media. The standards had the potential to provide the foundation for a rigorous core curriculum for all students.

To realize the potential of the revised standards, however, the state needed to take additional steps to focus the standards on the most critical topics and events — a manageable core — and to clarify what about those topics and events was most important for students to learn.