9/11 Education in Schools Varies Widely Across US States
As the nation prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, an Associated Press investigation has found that at least 40 states expect or suggest that public schools address 9/11 in some way — but the depth and framing of that instruction varies dramatically across the country. With roughly 100 million Americans alive today having no lived memory of the attacks, the role of schools in preserving the story has never been more critical.
A Generation Without Memory
The demographic challenge facing educators is unprecedented. About one-third of Americans were born after al-Qaida hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 10% of American adults today were born after 2001 and know about the attacks only through what they have learned from others.
For many of these young Americans, school has become the primary gateway to understanding 9/11. The Pew survey found that 60% of young adults aged 18 to 24 first learned about the attacks in class or through schoolwork, making classroom instruction the single most important vehicle for transmitting the memory of that day to the next generation.
A Patchwork of State Approaches
The AP’s data, gathered through requests to all states, reviews of education standards, and interviews with lawmakers and officials, reveals a complex landscape. Twenty-five states have laws or education standards that require or expect public schools to provide instruction specifically on the Sept. 11 attacks, while another 13 have optional mentions of 9/11 in their standards. Several other states have laws requiring or recommending school observances such as moments of silence.
A decade after the attacks, about 60% of states did not explicitly mention 9/11 in their education standards. But that has changed significantly as the attacks came to be seen as “a settled event,” according to Jeremy Stoddard, a University of Wisconsin education professor who has researched 9/11 education for decades.
“For those states that include it, it seems to be going in much more depth than it was in the past,” Stoddard said.
Divergent Approaches Across the Country
The specific requirements vary enormously. In Alabama, fifth graders trace U.S. military involvement in international conflicts since 1980, while high school juniors evaluate the effectiveness of the U.S. response to 9/11. Florida requires at least 45 minutes a year of 9/11-related instruction in some middle and high school classes. Texas has taught the attacks as an example of “radical Islamic terrorism” and requires a minute of silence each Sept. 11.
Other states take markedly different approaches. Colorado suggests high school students might analyze the aftermath of Sept. 11, including “Middle Eastern discrimination.” New Mexico envisions discussions that could include the U.S. detention of suspected enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal.
Interestingly, state approaches don’t always map neatly onto political leanings. States as politically different as California, Florida, New Jersey, and North Dakota all propose or expect that students discuss post-9/11 efforts to balance national security and civil liberties. However, social studies overhauls reflecting conservative priorities have tended to include more explicit 9/11 content, such as Louisiana’s “Freedom Framework,” which starts mentioning 9/11 in second grade.
“We coalesced around our belief that Sept. 11 needed to be included in a very real way,” Louisiana Education Superintendent Cade Brumley said. He hopes students learn that “threats to our freedom are real, but as Americans, I think, we are quite powerful when we stand together and we face that adversity.”
The Challenge of Teaching Trauma
For educators, teaching about 9/11 involves navigating their own painful memories while recognizing that students see the attacks as distant history. When Megan Jones became education chief at the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum in 2014, teachers told her they worried about bringing up traumatic memories for students. Now, pupils often need basic facts.
The key, Jones said, is “helping them to understand how 9/11 ultimately shaped the world that they live in.”
Some states have adjusted requirements to address age-appropriateness concerns. Arizona lawmakers originally required “age-appropriate education” on Sept. 11 in all public schools, but in 2025 they limited the requirement to seventh through 12th grades. “We have to protect young children from the true horror of 9/11 and ensure older children never forget it,” said state Sen. John Kavanagh, a Republican who sponsored the original measure.
Stories of Heroism as Teaching Tools
Many educators are turning to stories of individual heroism to make the events tangible for young students. The story of Welles Crowther, a 24-year-old equities trader who saved as many as 18 people in the South Tower before dying on 9/11, is now taught to children in more than 40 states through the Red Bandanna Project. His mother, Alison Crowther, helped develop the curriculum.
“The history is the history,” Alison Crowther said. “I say to young people, ‘This happened. It was devastating. But you can’t live in fear, and you can’t be controlled by fear.’”
Kevin Holbrook, project director of the Red Bandanna Project, explained why the story resonates: “What makes Welles’ story so powerful for young people is that he wasn’t a historical figure from another century. He was a young man. He was an ordinary person who made extraordinary choices when it mattered.”
Teachers across the country have embraced similar approaches. Crystal Bozigian, a history teacher at North Providence High School in Rhode Island, plays an ESPN documentary about Crowther each year and asks students to reflect on acts of heroism in their own lives. “I don’t like to spend that day in the dark doldrums,” Bozigian said. “I just think that our American story… has always been one of heroism and resilience.”
Preserving Memory for the Future
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum has launched The Never Forget Fund campaign to address the educational challenge at scale. The memorial announced in June that it has raised over $25 million this year to enhance student field trips, teacher training, and other education programs, with Michael Bloomberg pledging to match the next $25 million raised. The campaign aims to teach 20 million students and train 100,000 professionals.
“As our nation approaches the 25th anniversary of one of the darkest days in its 250-year history, we must redouble our efforts to ensure Americans never forget what happened on 9/11 and how we responded,” Bloomberg said.
The Flight 93 National Memorial also brought 40 Pennsylvania teachers to its site in June for a three-day educator symposium. Gordon Felt, whose brother Edward died on United Airlines Flight 93, told teachers that the greatest risk is silence. “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.”
Looking Ahead
As the 25th anniversary arrives this week, the educational landscape continues to evolve. Idaho added Sept. 11-specific requirements to its social studies standards this year, Utah passed a legislative resolution encouraging schools to commemorate the anniversary, and New Jersey lawmakers have proposed expanding 9/11 instruction requirements. In Congress, Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., has proposed a resolution encouraging all states to teach students about the attacks.
For the generation of teachers who are themselves too young to remember 9/11 — like John Boston Bradley, a 28-year-old social studies teacher in Johnstown, Pennsylvania — the challenge is both professional and personal. Bradley said the memorial symposium inspired him to convey more of the “human, emotional aspect” of the attacks.
“It will help our students understand that these difficult stories need to be told,” he said.
As Katie Jeffers, a high school teacher in Catoosa County, Georgia, put it: “I wish that the students that I teach nowadays could witness the solidarity. I tell them, you can be proud of America and not agree with other people’s politics.”
With one-third of Americans having no direct memory of September 11, 2001, the question of how the nation remembers — and teaches — that day will only grow more important in the decades ahead.