Everyone wants to teach more history, but which version?
- Joanne Jacobs
- 21 hours ago
- 2 min read
Texas' new social studies standards have veered to the right, reports Sarah Schwartz in Education Week.
Students will be taught that the Bible influenced the Founders and "draw connections between religious texts and history — such as a 6th grade standard that asks students to compare Harriet Tubman with Moses in the Exodus story," writes Schwartz. (This seems entirely appropriate to me.) World history will focus on Western civilization, critics complain. Islam will be taught "in the context of conflict or slavery."
Texas adopted “deeply ideological” and “very openly right-wing" standards in 2010, says Fordham scholar Jeremy Stern, then moved to the center in 2018. Proposed 2022 updates were so controversial the revision was delayed until 2025.
Minnesota’s new social studies standards center power, oppression and identity, writes Catrin Wigfall of the conservative Center of the American Experiment.
Fourth-graders are asked to “identify the processes and impacts of colonization and examine how discrimination and the oppression of various racial and ethnic groups have produced resistance movements" and sixth graders to examine how “discrimination based on race, gender, economic [status], ableism, and social group identity affects” Minnesotans. High schoolers are expected to “develop an analysis of racial capitalism, political economy, anti-Blackness, Indigenous sovereignty, illegality and indigeneity.”
At every age, students are to “organize with others to engage in activities that could further the rights and dignity of all.” That "reads more like a call to activism than a social studies objective," writes Wigfall.
Civics and history haven't disappeared completely, she writes. "But that content now competes for space" with ideology in "U.S. history, world history, economics, government and citizenship, and even geography."
Josiah Padley compares Texas to Minnesota at various grade levels. For example, Texas wants first graders to "understand the story of Thanksgiving," while Minnesota expects them to "identify examples of ethnicity, equality, liberation and systems of power."
Texans appear to have a better grasp of child development; but for social studies standards, I recommend those of the Department of Defense Education Activity, at least for grades 6-12 (I think the primary years need a different curricular approach altogether, while upper secondary education should also develop different curricula for youth in vocational education & training vs. general ed students).