Secretary of Education Roderick Paige's reaction was that: "This is unacceptable." Professor Diane Ravitch, a historian and a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, cited the poor quality of history teaching in our schools as one of the key problems, noting that 54 percent of public high school students have history teachers that did not major or minor in the subject. According to Ravitch, in many schools "the way they spell history teacher is c-o-a-c-h."

As library construction remains stagnant nationwide, and declining in some communities, and as competing information and community service demands grow, existing books and periodicals struggle for what space is left. In most libraries, books and back issues of periodicals will lose this battle and end up in the trash. It is likely that older books on history, biography and politics will bear a disproportionate measure of this burden, and many of these are at risk of disappearing forever, taking with them a small but nonetheless important part of the story of our people.

It is the goal of the Library of American History to help reverse these unwelcome trends. To do this, the Library will have as its purpose the collection and preservation of all books and periodicals covering American history. The Library will also serve as a foundation for the creation of an ambitious series of American history education programs targeting students, scholars, established historians, journalists, and elementary and high school history teachers with a variety of programs to enhance their knowledge of American history, or ability to convey it to others.