Over three summer days, educators gathered at the Flight 93 National Memorial in rural western Pennsylvania to address a complex challenge: how best to teach the September 11 attacks to a generation born long after 2001. Participants evaluated which details suit younger children and examined how victims' families wish the dead to be commemorated. Speaking to attendees during one panel, Gordon Felt, whose brother Edward Felt died aboard United Airlines Flight 93, stressed that silence poses the greatest danger to historical memory.
"Even worse than getting started wrong or using inappropriate language is the total omission of telling the story," he said. "That’s our biggest fear." Classroom instruction on 9/11 has become increasingly critical as roughly one-third of the American population was born after al-Qaida hijackers crashed four commercial airliners, killing nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. An investigation found that at least 40 states now mandate or recommend that public schools cover the attacks in some capacity, though state guidelines differ markedly in detail, scope, and perspective.
Educational standards across the country span from granular curriculum requirements to broad thematic objectives. As a result, several states offer no specific guidance on what educators should teach about the events of Sept. 11. A decade after the tragedy, roughly 60 percent of states failed to make explicit mention of 9/11 in their educational frameworks.
However, state curricula shifted over time as the attacks came to be regarded as "a settled event," noted Jeremy Stoddard, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin. Stoddard has researched 9/11 pedagogy for decades alongside colleagues, including retired dean Diana Hess. "For those states that include it, it seems to be going in much more depth than it was in the past," Stoddard stated.
Data compiled by the AP through state inquiries, reviews of published standards, and interviews with educational officials show that 25 states currently have statutes or standards requiring or expecting public schools to provide targeted instruction on the Sept. 11 attacks. An additional 13 states include discretionary references to 9/11, while several others require or advise formal school observances, bringing the total to at least 40 states with established policies. In jurisdictions without explicit state mandates, individual schools and teachers retain the authority to cover the topic at their own discretion.
While state authorities share a commitment to historical education, their curricular frameworks vary considerably. In Alabama, 9/11 is integrated into coursework on "the United States’ military involvement in international conflicts since 1980" starting in the fifth grade. In Texas, state standards frame the attacks and subsequent events as an example of "radical Islamic terrorism" and a foundational element of modern world history.
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