Letters to the Editor: The case for more history classes in our schools

To the editor: At this point, the relative scarcity of time allotted in the school curriculum for U.S. history is a most serious issue. For example, in my first year of classroom teaching in 1965, my school district’s curriculum naturally called for a full sweep of U.S. history. To the editor: In her op-ed article co-written with Benjamin Carter Hett, New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, my LAUSD graduate classmate, presented a convincing case that former President Trump’s statement about there being no need for future elections is in line with past dictators’ intolerance of popular sovereignty and democracy. To combat this, California schools need to put more history courses in our curriculum, as students no longer understand World War II and its details, implications and meaning. Instead of more remedial math and remedial English in our summer schools, we could create social studies electives that include civics, contemporary history and current events, including the war in Gaza, the Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions and much more.