Our Responsibility

California's educational policies and laws demand that we teach truthful, accurate renderings of the past and present, that we include and honor all peoples in our curriculum, and that we face the past with wide-open eyes to its complexities that include horrors and oppression as well as triumphs and resistance. Race is central to understanding so many parts of our world - past and present, local and national. Attempts to minimize or politicize the significance of race in the study of history limits a complete understanding of the past and harms the teaching profession and, consequently, our students.  

We maintain that all of California’s students deserve high-quality history-social science, and ethnic studies instruction that equips them to discern fact from fiction and understand how the past matters to the present. As historian Joanne Freeman of Yale University states, “[I]f we’re teaching American history, race is part of it.”

Our Mission

We are dedicated to providing the highest quality history instruction, with a special focus on meeting the needs of English learners, native speakers with low literacy, and students from economically disadvantaged communities. Click here to read more about the CHSSP's work, offerings, and resources.

Our Institutions

We belong to a larger network of discipline-specific programs known as the California Subject Matter Projects (CSMP), administered by the University of California, Office of the President. Our headquarters in the Department of History at University of California, Davis, provide support for our six regional sites across the state.  At each site, teachers and scholars work together to improve classroom instruction, student learning, and literacy.

Our Approach

Our approach to instruction integrates content, disciplinary understanding, and explicit support for English language proficiency, framed in an inquiry model of historical investigation. As the Primary Writers of California's Framework for History-Science, all CHSSP programs and resources are aligned with the Framework, which connects the Common Core State Standards, the English Language Development Standards,and the History-Social Science Standards in an integrated instructional model.

Our People

To learn more about us, visit our Statewide Office at UC Davis, our Regional Sites, and our Advisory Board pages.