The United States Department of Education’s Teaching American History (TAH) grant was created to raise student achievement by improving teachers’ knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of American history. TAH grants are intended to encourage collaboration among K–12 teachers, post-secondary faculty, and public historians.

The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) Office of Innovation and Improvement awarded the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) Office of Curriculum and Instruction three years of federal funding to increase teacher history content knowledge and improve history instruction. Using the goals set forth by USDE, SDP designed a professional model that contained activities intended to achieve the overall goals of the program. The grant presents a tremendous opportunity to provide new training programs to support innovative history instruction for under-served students.

This evaluation was conducted in the second year of implementation of the TAH program. The TAH program was guided by four overarching goals, which shaped the evaluation:

1. To recruit and retain a number of program participants;
2. To increase teacher content knowledge of American history;
3. To improve instruction of traditional American history content; and
4. To sustain the TAH program beyond federal funding. (This goal was not addressed during this evaluation period and was included in the 2012-13 evaluation report.) 

The main focus of the program during the 2011-12 school year was 17 Saturday professional development sessions.

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