Teaching American History Grants funded by the US Department of Education Project Preamble 2006-2009 The Constitution of the United States Year 1: The Constitutional Era, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Age of Industrialization, the New Deal era, and the post-Civil Rights Movement Year 2: The judicial system, civil rights, Amendment 14, and the expanding role of the President, and Year 3: Amendments 15 and 19, the Electoral College, the election process, turning point elections, and voting rights Project Americana 2002-2005 In 2001, the United States Department of Education began offering grants to support programs that raised student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge, understanding and appreciation of American History. Yonkers Public Schools was awarded $930,000 ($310,000 a year 2002-2005) to fund Project Americana. It provided general, special education, bilingual education, reading, ESL, art, and library-media teachers in grades 2, 4, 7, 8, 11 and 12 (the grades American History is taught in NY) and their administrators with intensive, systematic professional development in American history.

Teaching and Learning
Teaching American History: Project Preamble

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The United States Department of Education awarded the Yonkers Public Schools a $860,614 competitive grant to implement a three-year professional development program to support the teaching of the Constitution.

Over the life of Project Preamble, five distinct American periods will be examined in light of immigration patterns, elections and voting rights, amendments to the Constitution, the judicial system, and the President's expanding role. These periods are:

1. Constitutional Era
2. Civil War and Reconstruction
3. Age of Industrialization
4. New Deal Era,
5. Post-Civil Rights Movement

The project will increase teacher knowledge and improve the quality of instruction by providing 70 American history teachers each project year, including special and bilingual education and library-media teachers of grades 7, 8, 11, and 12 at the district's middle and high schools, with intensive, systematic professional development.

Eleven of the thirteen enduring Constitutional issues will be addressed through an in-depth study of the Preamble of the Constitution:

1. national power
2. federalism
3. the judiciary
4. civil liberties
5. rights of the accused
6. equality
7. the rights of women
8. rights of ethnic and racial groups
9. presidential powers in wartime and foreign affairs
10. separation of powers
11. avenues of representation

Our Partners

Exceptional partnerships increase American History content knowledge and skills, and deepen understanding of the American experience.

The Yonkers Public Schools partners for Project Preamble represent education and cultural organizations and institutions. They are:

• Manhattan College
• History Alive!
• New York Historical Society
• Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
• Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
• Yonkers Historical Society
• WNET/Channel 13
• Museum of Television and Radio