Rochester ranks highest among New York State's urban districts for poverty, and its mainly non-White students speak more than 35 languages. Six district elementary schools are designated as in need of improvement, and 30 percent of district social studies teachers have less than three years of teaching experience. Each year, Elementary Historians will provide a 20-hour summer institute, on-site coaching, and four 2-hour theme-based lectures with hands-on exploration of documents and artifacts and lesson development. The participant cohort will emphasize fourth and fifth grade teachers, with a goal of reaching 100 percent of such teachers in the six neediest schools and 30 percent of such teachers across the district. Bilingual and special education teachers, certified library media specialists, reading coaches, art and music teachers, and English language arts specialists will be invited to participate if space permits. The project will focus on building a bridge between teachers, historians, and students, and on connecting schools to community institutions. In addition to university and local historians, full-time content area coaches will work with participants. These coaches will deliver school-based strategic teaching sessions and model classrooms to help teachers transfer what they learn to their practice. Strategies will include using primary documents and historical thinking skills to help students recognize connections between historic and present-day events. The project will establish an ongoing teacher resource library, and participants will develop lesson plans that align with state standards and employ engaging, research-based strategies. All workshops will be videotaped and mounted on the district's intranet, where all teachers can access the content and discussions.

Through the American Dream program, the New York City Department of Education (the largest school district in the country) will engage American history teachers in the city's 461 struggling elementary and middle schools. Only 30 percent of the city's eighth graders passed the state's latest social studies assessment. American Dream will seek to reach all 461 schools, with every teacher invited to participate in one or more program layers. Up to 150 teachers will participate in an intensive teacher leadership program, 90 of whom will attend an inaugural conference in Year 1. In each subsequent year, these and additional teacher-leaders will complete 72 hours of leadership development training, original research, curriculum development, and vertical team planning projects, run an American history conference for 100 teachers from around the city, and establish and maintain school-based American history resource rooms. Rigorous, but less intensive, instruction will be offered to the rest of the schools' history teachers through the Becoming Historians lecture series (Year 1), a quarterly evening lecture series, a quarterly workshop series at historical houses, a quarterly book club, and a film club. Through the lens of the American Dream, the program will explore defining moments in American history, from the time before European colonization through modern times. Teacher-leaders will be trained to provide professional development on innovative, developmentally appropriate teaching strategies that integrate technology and develop students' research, analysis, and presentation skills. Successful strategies and curricular units developed through the program will be disseminated citywide. In addition, teacher leaders will maintain American history resource rooms in their schools.

Community School District 31 has joined with four other New York City school districts in Brooklyn and Staten Island with a significant immigrant population to implement History for All. Thirty-five percent of the districts' schools have been cited for intervention due to substandard academic achievement, and pass rates on U.S. history exams is particularly low for special education students (27 percent, compared to 63 percent for general education students). Teachers who teach special education students in self-contained and/or inclusive settings will receive 68 hours of professional development annually: four day-long seminars; a week-long summer institute, led by historians, during which teachers will develop classroom activities; and seven monthly after-school meetings during which participants can share experiences and pedagogical approaches and learn to integrate technology, assessment, and fiction and nonfiction. Classroom coaching from the project director will help teachers refine project-based activities. The program will recruit 50 teachers for Years 1-3 and 40 for Years 4-5. All will be trained to lead professional development for other teachers in their schools and districts, and 10 members of the first cohort will join the second cohort and act as lead teachers to support their turnkey training efforts. Historical content will emphasize how Americans of different eras have struggled with and shaped the meaning of democracy in the United States. Teachers will learn to integrate art and material culture into their teaching of history through the use of differentiated instruction and universal design. All participating teachers will become part of a professional development cadre and will distribute classroom-tested activities online.

Becoming Historians is designed to improve instruction in American history in a cross section of elementary schools in New York City's Community School Districts 1-6 in the Borough of Manhattan, with a particular focus on those schools designated as being in need of improvement, where 44 percent of fifth grade students are scoring below grade-level expectations on the state social studies assessment. To nurture teachers' historical "habits of mind," several professional development activities will be offered each year: a weeklong summer institute; five day-long sessions that include a colloquium with a historian, discussion of scholarly tests, work with primary sources, visits to local cultural institutions, and development of lessons aligned with city and state content and history standards for grades 4 and 5; and collegial sharing with teachers at participants' home schools through the creation of professional learning communities. Also, the districts will work with schools to update American history curricula and implement academic and structural interventions to improve student achievement. Each year for the first three years of the program, 25 fourth grade teachers and 25 fifth grade teachers will join. Every teacher will be encouraged to participate for the life of the program. Teachers will explore the development of American democracy from the founding of the nation to the beginning of the 21st Century. They will use inquiry and project-based learning to engage students in analysis and interpretation of historical events and issues. A project Web site will provide a venue for the sharing of ideas, information, resources, and teacher-created lesson plans and curriculum guides.

The eight charter schools participating in this grant are in the Bronx, New York. Nearly 100 percent of their students are ethnic minorities, and program activities will reflect a multicultural perspective. Each year, the professional development program will include eight 3-hour sessions during the school year, 6 hours of classroom modeling, four 5-hour summer sessions, and a variety of Web-based activities. Because elementary and middle school teachers are least likely to have formal history preparation, they will be the target audience for grant activities. Each year a new group of teachers will enter the project. Beginning in Year 2, 10 teachers from the previous year will stay on for two additional years and some of these will evolve into trainers. The underlying theme of collaboration and learning community is designed to build a network that the participating schools can use to sustain the project's impact. Fundamentals of American History will focus on early American history (1600s-1860s) to meet needs identified by teachers. Content spiraling will ensure that vital subject areas are revisited each year as new teachers enter the program. Instructional strategies will include building history skill sets, reviewing student work and conducting ongoing assessment, using peer support and self-reflection (both face-to-face and online), conducting historical research, and employing multimedia and Web-based activities. The project will produce a cadre of well-prepared history teachers who can support their colleagues and strengthen American history teaching and learning.

In these western New York state districts, teachers have few opportunities for history professional development and, because of state certification requirements, most have little formal preparation in American history. Setting Our Sites on History (Setting Our Sites) will address teachers' needs with 90 hours of professional development in a yearlong program: eight school-day workshops to present content, three Saturday workshops to design service learning activities, and a 4-day residential summer institute in Washington, D.C. to link local themes into a national framework. Historians and a regional archivist will present content in a site-based learning format, with sessions to be held at museums and historical landmarks. Each annual cohort of 25 teachers will be joined by future teachers of social studies from Buffalo State College—either in classrooms as student teachers or in project activities. Setting Our Sites will explore the ramifications and ideas behind the American ideal of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." This theme will link an exploration of the experiences of eight groups of people in American history who have struggled for and among one another for full rights (Native Americans, soldiers, pioneers, immigrants, women, children, the working class and African Americans). Instructional strategies will include a focus on service learning, which will have teachers design activities to engage students with local and national history. After completing the year-long training, teachers will mentor their colleagues to improve history teaching and employ service learning to build the collections of and interactions with historical sites and museums.

This northern New Jersey consortium has more than 157 schools in need of improvement. More than 28 percent of students are classified as disabled and many teachers are not highly qualified to teach American history. Coaching staff—historians and educators—will deliver 111 hours of training, plus eight hours aimed at helping nonparticipants implement curriculum created by participants. The project will offer three distinct 2-year programs, each designed to serve specific grade levels. Each year, each district will have five 2-hour afterschool workshops, one full-day training, a 35-hour summer institute, a regional event/conference to promote replication, on-site and online mentoring, and access to a Web site containing resources and other project products. Years 1 and 2 will involve 60 high school teachers; Years 2 and 3 will train 60 middle school teachers; and Years 4 and 5 will train 50 elementary teachers. The project theme is meeting the 21st Century challenge of helping the increasing numbers of immigrant, English as a Second Language, and disabled students reach proficiency in American history. The goal is systemic reform in a region where many districts have not updated their American history curricula for a decade. Teachers will practice such instructional strategies as historical inquiry skills, differentiated instruction, Understanding by Design, and literacy strategies that address the needs of struggling students. With an eye to replicating the project, leaders have a quasi-experimental design for pilot testing, evaluating and implementing 21st Century Teaching American History. They expect to end with a curriculum that organizes historical facts into big ideas, essential questions, and enduring understandings.

Led by the Miller R-II School District, a consortium of 14 rural Missouri school districts in need of improvement will address teachers' underpreparation in history education by implementing the Preserving America's Midwestern Heritage Fellowship. The fellowship program will offer 40 to 70 teachers of history in Grades 3-12 two professional development tracks. Those who choose Track 1 will attend at least six 3-hour content seminars that include content and instructional skills training in inquiry; they may also opt to attend a 5-day summer travel institute. Those in Track 2 will attend a 2-day fall colloquium, a 2-day spring colloquium, four and a half days of research and review, and a 5-day summer travel institute. Teachers in both tracks will attend Talking History Webinars, prepare standards-based units, lessons, and/or other lesson materials, and receive classroom coaching that employs the thereNow IRIS telepresence coaching system. Five participants will become lead teachers and provide turnkey trainings for history teachers across the consortium. Each year, fellows will research and study the political, economic, legal, social and ideological contrasts found throughout American history. They will learn to use the Binary Paideia paradigm, the American Institute for History Education Signature Strategies, and the CICERO "digital toolbox" of resources to implement grade-appropriate, inquiry-based teaching in their classrooms. Fellows will create historical narratives and interactive lessons that will be shared on the fellowship Web site. In addition, they will create "traveling trunks" that will be available for check-out to teachers across the consortium.

The city of St. Louis constitutes the core of a large metropolitan area, and its schools serve a high-needs population. Students in St. Louis Public Schools have scored considerably below averages on Missouri's state achievement test, and the state has designated the district as being in need of improvement. To reform and revitalize the St. Louis Public Schools American history program at the elementary school level, Let Freedom Ring will provide two years of professional development to each fourth and fifth grade teachers in the district's 40 elementary schools. For each teacher, the first year of involvement will include a 35-hour seminar series, a 3-day summer institute on the tools of social science inquiry, and a 3-day field experience. In their second year, teachers will receive on-site assistance and support from historians as they design and implement at least three high-quality standards-based instructional units. Four cohorts will be trained, with 30 teachers in each cohort. Teachers and, ultimately, their students, will become more knowledgeable about critical events, documents, timelines and relationships in our nation's history and will experience history in a personal way as they interact with primary source documents. Instructional strategies will focus on inquiry methods that require hands-on examination of primary documents, critical analysis, case study, discussion and research. Let Freedom Ring will provide a model for enhancing American history programming at the elementary level, and a program implementation guide will be made available to other districts wishing to adopt or adapt the St. Louis model.

The South Central Service Cooperative is a consortium of districts in mostly rural south central Minnesota, where 73 percent of the schools have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress at the district or building level. Each year of the Minnesota River Valley program will include a kick-off celebration, seven Professional Learning Community meetings throughout the academic year to discuss a historical work that corresponds with that year's National History Day theme, three topical school-year seminars that emphasize Minnesota connections within the national narrative, and an 8- to 10-day summer institute that concludes with a travel immersion experience. Participating teachers will also receive school and classroom support for involving their students in History Day, a program that requires students to select, research, analyze and present on a historical topic using primary and secondary sources. Additionally, each year, 10 teachers will attend a Summer Teaching Institute for Advanced Placement U.S. History. The Minnesota River Valley program will engage a new cohort of 35 teachers annually. A supplemental emphasis on southern Minnesota history will be embedded in each year's theme. To help teachers address the learning needs of the district's English language learners and children with special needs, professional development will incorporate differentiated instruction and evidence-based practices for teaching history. Enduring benefits will include a Professional Learning Community among teachers working in small, rural schools and increased participation in National History Day.