OP-ED: Lincoln’s Assassination and U.S. History

Read the full op-ed on The Springfield Republican Editorial Page  and the MetroWest Daily News
on April 14, 2015

By Tom Birmingham                                                                                          

“Now he belongs to the ages,” Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said upon the death of President Abraham Lincoln. But on the sesquicentennial of Lincoln’s assassination we’re in jeopardy of producing a generation of young people who are largely ignorant of our nation’s past.

Along with Mark Roosevelt, I co-authored Massachusetts’ 1993 Education Reform Act (MERA) [PDF]. The Commonwealth has much to be proud of over the last 22 years of reform. Since 2005 we’ve led the nation at every grade level and every subject tested on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), called the “Nation’s Report Card.” Read more here and here

Tom Birmingham is the Distinguished Senior Fellow in Education at Pioneer Institute and the co-author of the landmark Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993.