Corey Bower seems to think so. He points to this passage from this New York Times piece about some affluent suburban public schools that are adopting a "global studies" curriculum:
Michael J. Petrilli, a vice president of the conservative-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute, cautioned that American schools were already giving short shrift to American history and government and could not afford to layer global studies on top of already stretched curriculum.
"In some of these trendy schools, there is an ethos that we are all citizens of the world, and that's all that matters," he said. "Students need to be taught to be American citizens first."
To be fair to Corey, the reporter's paraphrasing of my views wasn't entirely accurate. By all means schools should be teaching students about the rest of the world; that's why Fordham reviewed the states' world history standards, for example. But it appears that the school profiled in the article is finding time for "global studies" by trimming American history and civics. Given that schools are already narrowing history out of the curriculum, I found this disturbing. And it's hardly "reactionary" or "anti-world" to believe that American students should be taught about American history and citizenship--before being taught how to be "citizens of the world." Or if it is reactionary, and I don't know it, then I've suddenly gotten a lot more conservative in just the past few weeks. No doubt I'm spending too much time with Jeff Kuhner.
