The American Psychological Association requires graduate programs to cover a range of core competencies, including "the breadth of scientific psychology, it's history and development, it's research methods, and its applications. To achieve this end, the students shall be exposed to the current body of knowledge in at least the following areas:...history and systems of psychology..." (APA Guidelines and Principles for Accreditation of Programs in Professional Psychology, http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/about/policies/guiding-principles.pdf). This applies to all APA accredited doctoral programs in clinical, counseling, and school psychology. Many programs meet this requirement with a History and Systems course, which covers development of psychology as a field as well as different branches of psychological theory. However, some graduate programs may choose to meet the requirement by requiring students to complete an independent study on this topic.
The APA does not accredit master's or bachelor's programs, so there may be more diversity as to whether a history of psychology course is provided or required at that level. A 2010 APA Monitor article discusses this issue (Chamberlin, 2010). The reasons for teaching the history of psychology vary. At my undergraduate university a History and Systems course was a required course in your senior-year, as the program felt it not only provided a sound theoretical foundation but also served as an excellent review for the GRE Psychology subject test. A 2011 dissertation explored the content of history of psychology courses in APA accredited programs, and may provide additional information on the presence of the history of psychology in American education (Petzolt, 2011). The author noted that there are many reasons typically given for this APA requirement, including "the belief that the study of history is a way of unifying the different branches of the field, that it helps to ground current psychological research in tradition and theory, and that it establishes a framework from which all applications can be derived" (Petzolt, 2011).
Chamberlin, J. (2010). Don't know much about history. APA Monitor, 41(2), 44. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/02/history.aspx
Petzolt, N. M. (2011). Teaching the graduate course in the history of psychology in APA accredited programs. St. John's University (New York), 53 pages. UMI Proquest Publication number: 3445776.