He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.
State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.
[...]
Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.
"The answer isn't to throw out fundamental portions of U.S. history," said Mike Belter, a U.S. history teacher and social studies director. "This is not preparing our kids to have a deep historical perspective that can be used to analyze modern events for themselves."