Elementary Social Studies Practice has a Problem

The last time elementary students were tested on their knowledge of social studies topics—including U.S. history, civics, and geography—was in 2010 for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation’s report card. That year, one-quarter of fourth grade students achieved proficiency in social studies.

Now, education stakeholders are forced to think about social studies more carefully than ever, as the pandemic meets a social and political moment that is hyper-focused on America’s history. The RAND Corporation’s new report, The Missing Infrastructure for Elementary (K–5) Social Studies Instruction: Findings from the 2022 American Instructional Resources Survey, uses 2021-22 school year data from 745 teachers and 1,598 K–5 principals in public schools across the country to shed light on policies and practices impacting social studies instruction.

The current elementary social studies curricular infrastructure in U.S. public schools barely exists, according to RAND. The report defines infrastructure as policies and practices “in place at the state, district, and school levels that, when combined, create an environment to support teachers’ instructional practices, and thereby, student learning.” While the report details why this infrastructure is lacking, three interconnected reasons explain the problem: (1) volatility over state standards, (2) lack of local teacher evaluation and professional learning, and (3) lack of curricular support for teachers.

Volatility Over State Standards

The report suggests that the state level elementary social studies infrastructure is volatile and subject to politics. While changes to federal laws have been limited, the state landscape changes frequently, leading to a system offering little support and guidance to districts and classrooms .

The authors highlighted the difficulty states have in determining what content should be included in standards. Some noted frameworks designed to help states (such as the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework and The Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy) do not dictate what content should be delivered at what grade level, resulting in “disparate standards for social studies instruction with large variation across states in both content and rigor.”

Additionally, the report notes two previous studies—a 2021 Thomas B. Fordham Institute study and a 2018 Brookings Institution study—that show significant variability across states in what adequate standards look like. The Fordham study uncovered only four states and Washington, DC with an exemplary rating in both subjects; 20 states earned an inadequate rating. Authors of the RAND report note that despite agreement between states on the use of resources like the C3 Framework and the EAD road map, there still was no consensus on exactly what social studies should be.

Another major deficiency in the state social studies infrastructure is accountability and assessment . Although high-stakes assessments are central to federal education laws, namely the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), so it should not be surprising that researchers found that ELA and math assessment take precedence over social studies. Under ESSA, states are required to assess students in reading and math in grades three and eight, and all states consider ELA and math in their accountability systems. However, only a handful of states include social studies in their accountability formulas, and those that do weigh it lower than the other core subjects.

Finally, the report notes how political environments inform state and district policies and impact instruction. National political “disagreements,” the authors write, are playing a larger role in schools and “causing stress for educators to navigate.” In the last two years, at least 17 states have passed laws restricting how teachers can address race and gender, which directly impact the resources made available to educators. Read more about how educators are navigating these restrictions here.

Lack of Teacher Evaluation and Professional Learning

The report found that support for educators at the local level is also lacking, particularly in resources for teacher evaluations and professional learning. In the 2021–22 school year, 98 percent of principals reported evaluating teachers’ ELA and math instruction, and 74 percent did so in science, but only 67 percent reported evaluating teachers in social studies. Researchers also found stark differences in administration of teacher evaluations by race and socioeconomic status. Elementary principals serving low-poverty populations, where less than half the students are eligible for free and reduced-price meals, were more likely to report evaluation of teachers in social studies (74 percent) than their counterparts (60 percent). Similarly, principals serving schools with majority white students enrolled were more likely to report evaluating teachers in social studies than their counterparts.

Researchers found a strong relationship between ELA achievement and the likelihood of evaluation of teachers in social studies by the principal. Where pre-pandemic ELA scores were above grade level, 88 percent of principals reported evaluating teachers in social studies. Where pre-pandemic ELA scores were below grade level, only 55 percent of principals reported evaluating teachers in social studies. RAND’s analysis suggests that schools serving more advantaged populations, with historically higher achievement in core subjects, have more freedom to improve social studies instruction because they are more likely to meet proficiency targets in ELA and math. It also suggests that the converse could be true, with principals serving more disadvantaged populations having to prioritize resources and professional development on meeting proficiency targets for ELA and math over social studies.

Researchers also examined professional learning opportunities and found fewer support for social studies instruction than for ELA and math. In the 2021–22 school year only 52 percent of principals indicated that schools or districts provided professional development opportunities for social studies instruction. Approximately 90 percent of principals, however, provided frequent professional learning for ELA and math instruction.

Researchers also investigated whether schools are provided with curricula to support social studies instruction. A third (29 percent of elementary principals reported that their schools did not have a specific curriculum adopted for social studies, compared to 2 percent for ELA and math and 7 percent for science. The report notes that in addition to being less likely to have adopted curricula for social studies, principals were also less likely to require or recommend its use.

Lack of Curricular Support

At the classroom level, social studies is approached differently than its core counterparts. According to the AIR survey, elementary school teachers see themselves and their peers as the primary decision-makers about what instructional materials to use. The RAND authors posit that this may be due to a lack of state guidance; 38 percent of teacher respondents saw themselves as decision-makers, 21 percent saw “teachers in their school system” as decision-makers, and 39 percent saw school and district leaders as the decision-makers. The autonomy that teachers experience is specific to the social studies subject, as survey respondents overwhelmingly named district and school leaders as decision-makers for ELA and math materials.

Few (16 percent) elementary teachers reported using district- recommended curricular materials or textbooks for social studies. The majority of teachers (52 percent) were categorized as “cobblers,” or those that pulled together their own supplemental materials from sources they trust. A fifth of teachers (22 percent) were characterized as do-it-yourselfers. And regardless of how they were categorized, teachers resourced supplemental materials regularly. The report's authors found that more than half of elementary teachers used Teachers Pay Teachers, BrainPOP, and YouTube, and one-third regularly used Scholastic News, Kahoot!, and materials pulled from google searches.

Elementary teachers spend fewer hours per week teaching social studies compared to other core subjects but spend more time planning for social studies instruction than other core subjects. In the report, teachers estimated that students typically spent nine hours weekly on ELA, seven hours weekly on math, and three hours weekly in both social studies and science. In states that included social studies in their accountability formulas (Delaware, Kentucky, and Louisiana), teachers spent approximately one more hour on social studies instruction than in states where it is not included.

These findings suggest that K–5 social studies infrastructure exists primarily at the local and classroom levels, and that teachers continue to supplement limited state-provided guidance and resources. Operating without the supports necessary to facilitate student success in such a contentious subject area makes educators’ jobs that much more difficult. New America recently published a two-part brief (part one, part two) on the Woodson Collaborative, describing how Virginia educators have navigated these issues.

The RAND report recommends increasing rigor and accountability at the state level, providing professional learning opportunities for teachers, and determining how to communicate what high-quality instruction and materials look like. These recommendations on how to better support social studies practice could not be more timely in light of legislation calling out critical race theory and other issues common to social studies content. Education stakeholders, particularly practitioners and policymakers, must consider the lack of elementary social studies infrastructure, especially as states and localities continue to legislate how teachers address issues that speak to students’ social and political environments.

Correction published at 4:30PM on May 23, 2023: This blog post has been corrected to change the statement about elementary school principals' evaluation of teachers in social studies. The original post mistakenly stated that principals in low-income schools were more likely to evaluate teachers; the report data showed that principals in low-poverty, not low-income, schools were more likely to evaluate teachers.

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