The Peopling of America

The Peopling of America received its publicly supported nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service in 1997. It is the national operating organization for the evolved Americans All® program. See Evolution of Americans All®. The national organization will also serve as the repository for all curriculum resources and teaching supports. See The ABC’s of Americans All®, About Americans All®: Business and Implementation Plan, Planned Organization of The Peopling of America, and Sponsorship of Americans All®: Investing in Your Community’s Future.

Instructional Materials

The Peopling of America will help compile, distribute and maintain electronic databases that support how individual state education systems teach and test history and civics at various grade levels. These inclusive databases will comprise the complete political, social and cultural history of the nation, organized by state and grade level. State standards, curriculum frameworks and instructional materials will also be housed on the Americans All® Web site. In addition, to avoid duplication and provide consistency, the Web site will house generic U.S. history and civics information. The state-specific databases and the generic database will not contain advertising or pop-up messages. They will also be “closed,” meaning that users—most importantly, students—cannot link to outside sites without permission or their browsers will shut down.

The electronic databases and embedded resource links will enable students and teachers to access the most current specialized information, rather than rely exclusively on textbooks whose content may be outdated or too broad. Moreover, participating schools will have free, direct access to curriculum resources and teaching materials used elsewhere in the nation.

In addition, the national organization will deliver existing Americans All® program resources—texts, teacher’s guides and manuals, posters and photographs—to all participating schools. See Americans All® Classroom Materials and Teacher Resources. These printed materials provide teachers, students, parents and others with comparative information about six historical population groups that peopled and helped build our nation—Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, European Americans, Mexican Americans and Puerto Rican Americans. They were developed during the past two decades by more than 70 experts and are already being used in more than 2,000 schools and libraries nationwide.

To supplement these resources, the expanded Americans All® initiative calls for state-specific printed curriculum resources that are modeled after the existing printed program resources. The printed materials will be based on the electronic databases built for each state.

Training and Support

The Peopling of America will support, for five years, state-directed professional development programs. It will also establish, for 10 years, a communications network that will include a biweekly electronic newspaper and national meetings. These training and support tools will focus on sharing exemplary teaching strategies and help ensure the effective use of Americans All® resources.

The generic thematic lesson units and individual lesson plans posted on the Americans All® Web site will help teachers in participating schools meet the requirements of new standards-based instructional guidelines. By providing a greater choice of screened and approved curriculum resources and teaching materials, including text, audio and visual media, these schools will also be better equipped to accommodate students with special needs or different learning styles.

School and Community Outreach

The template that affords participating schools to the Americans All® Web site can serve multiple functions. For example, a school can use its template to create or expand parent-oriented communications networks that contain—within one domain—listings of school activities, school and student performance data, teacher lesson plans, homework assignments and resources to help complete those assignments.

Scalability

Americans All® provides a programmatic model and database infrastructure that is scalable and can later be applied to other related subject areas, such as geography, economics, art, music, literature and world history. Furthermore, by relying on local community members and businesses to generate funding while providing benefits of interest to these sponsors, an effective model for supporting programs such as Americans All® will be demonstrated.

Implementation and Funding

Americans All® has an implementation and maintenance timeframe of 10 years. See Key Steps in the Implementation of Americans All®. The early years will be devoted to gathering information on the political, social and cultural contributions made by all population groups that came to and through each state; collecting each state’s history and civics resources and instructional materials; refining the state’s Web system for delivering history and civics resources and instructional materials; distributing existing Americans All® program resources; developing the state-specific printed resources and electronic databases; and providing professional development to ensure educators will use these and other program-related resources effectively.

In years five through 10, Americans All® will help states update and expand the content of their databases and continue to provide assistance to improve the state-directed professional development programs. In addition, Americans All® will help schools develop community-based outreach strategies and provide districts and schools with assistance to improve their grant-writing skills.

To help ensure success, the national organization will coordinate the funding and operations of state Americans All® programs and the distribution of resources to schools. To implement the program, each state must create a nonprofit entity to handle fiscal and operational responsibilities—Americans All®-State “X.” This entity will hire a state program coordinator; ensure all public and private schools are notified of the opportunity to participate in the program; identify individuals and agencies within the state that will comprise the steering committee; and provide copies of state standards, curriculum frameworks and instructional materials to The Peopling of America. After the research has been completed, the state entity will prepare the state-specific printed resources and, with assistance from the national organization, develop the state-specific electronic databases.

The 10-year budget for Americans All® is $160 million. Sponsorship of $300 is needed each year for program participation. Although schools and other education institutions can fund their own program participation, the national organization will help them solicit the nominal annual participation fee of $300 from two groups within the community: individuals and local businesses and service providers.

These sponsors will make donations that will enable schools and other education institutions to gain annual access to the resources available from the program. An institution maintains its access so long as it receives an annual gift. It can, however, accept multiple donations each year and those additional donations will be applied to future years’ access. After an institution has received donations totaling the equivalent of 10 donations—one each year for the 10 years of program implementation—the national organization will turn over any additional funds pledged to that institution. Alternatively, sponsors can make their donation to a school district. District superintendents can then use these nondirected funds to help ensure program access for schools unable to raise the participation fee.

In addition to affording schools and other education institutions access to critically needed instructional resources and to being recognized for their generosity, individuals will be able to acknowledge or commemorate a person important to their life or the lives of others through the Americans All® Heritage Honor Roll. A template will facilitate the creation of a biography for this person, including a photograph if desired. Although schools and other education institutions must renew their access annually, individual sponsors will not need to pay an annual fee to keep their honoree’s name on the Heritage Honor Roll. If sponsors choose to increase the size or frequency of their gift, however, they will be able to post more information on their honoree. The Heritage Honor Roll will be posted on the Americans All® Web site alphabetically and alphabetically by state. Individual sponsors can update their entry at any time. The Honor Roll will remain a permanent part of the program and ensure that every American has an opportunity to become part of the fabric of our nation’s history.

A second source of program funding is local businesses and service providers. These sponsors’ donations will also enable schools and other education institutions to access critically needed instructional resources. They, too, will be recognized for their generosity. In addition, these sponsors will be afforded a marketing opportunity through the Americans All® Business Registry to provide detailed information on their products and/or services. The registry will be included on the program’s Web site, and the information will be presented alphabetically, alphabetically by state, and alphabetically by business category. Businesses and service providers will be required to renew the $300 participation fee each year to maintain their listing in the registry and their access to the Americans All® logo and posters, artwork and other items to use in their promotional efforts. (The Peopling of America will retain the right to ensure the logo and other promotional materials are used in a dignified and appropriate manner.)

To make the program more attractive to sponsors, participating businesses and service providers will be encouraged to create a discount program for all members of the Americans All® sponsor family. Decisions on the nature and amount of offered discounts will be made locally, and the national organization will provide lifetime membership cards for both sponsors and Heritage Honor Roll listees.