Achieving Common Ground

David Tucker began working with high school teachers in the early 1990s, teaching seminars in American history. In the early 200s, he wrote the academic portion of the accreditation proposal that established a Master’s degree in American history and government for high school teachers. In 2014, he designed and began managing a program of professional development for middle and high school teachers of American history and government that brings the graduate level education of the Master’s program to school districts across America. He still teaches in both programs, taking the opportunity to talk with teachers about their practices. Tucker, who holds a Ph. D. in History from Claremont Graduate University (1982), worked in the U.S. government for 32 years, the last 16 teaching at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. He has published books and articles on national security issues; a book on Thomas Jefferson; and essays on John Quincy Adams. He has edited a range of document collections intended for use by high school teachers of American history and government, including a forthcoming volume on the 1960s and 1970s, accompanied by a concise history of this period.


Ellen Tucker - Ellen Deitz Tucker holds a PhD in English and American literature from Claremont Graduate University. She spent twenty years working for Teaching American History, a program providing graduate-level content education, along with primary document-based resources, to secondary school teachers of American history and government. As a writer and editor for the program, she helped develop document collections, online historical exhibits, and short historical blogs. While interviewing outstanding social studies teachers and visiting them in their classrooms, she wrote over 150 stories describing their approach to civic education.