(“Civics” is typically understood as an account of the principles and structure of the American government rather than a chronological record of the national life.) We care about how well students master them not just because their performance serves as a marker of the success or failure of schooling but because history and civics are the means by which we convey our own story to the next generation and thus prepare young people for democratic citizenship. History and civics are not just school subjects like science and math. And yet, strangely, it didn’t end that way: After many more months, and several more iterations, and quite a few ugly confrontations, the board fumbled its way to state standards that everyone could live with, and even feel proud of.
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Viriginia seemed well on its way to proving that, at least in a purple state, Americans are no longer able to agree on how to teach, or even tell, the American story. The new standards were not only polemical but sloppy, and the vote was unanimous to reject that proposal as well. “That’s why you get these classes where everyone’s talking but no one’s saying anything about content,” as Rotherham puts it.īut a surprising thing happened next: The Youngkin-controlled board balked at the conservative draft too.
Mark Warner before being appointed again by Youngkin, said that he voted for a pause in August because “there wasn’t enough content in there.” Years spent visiting classrooms had shown Rotherham that teachers who have learned precious little history in ed school are left adrift without strong moorings in historical fact. Some of the Youngkin appointees wanted to see more flag-waving, but others were dismayed by the Northam curriculum’s elaborate flow charts on “Learning content THROUGH developing social science skills.” Their concern was not just over ideology but pedagogy - over how to teach, not what to teach.Īndy Rotherham, an educational consultant who was first appointed to the board by Democratic Gov. The very effort to teach the American story, and thus turn out citizens less polarized than ourselves, runs headlong into our cultural wood-chipper.Īnd yet … it wasn’t so simple in Virginia. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is running for president as the foe of all things “woke,” has overseen the publication of state standards for Black history that, among other things, suggested a moral equivalence between “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans” during the Jim Crow era. Kristi Noem, another culture warrior, was enacting the same drama as Virginia at the same time. South Dakota, acting at the behest of Gov. This is an almost wearyingly familiar narrative in our fractious republic: red-state governor declares war on “woke culture” and “critical race theory” and then force-feeds the glory of dead white males to an increasingly diverse society. The new draft, presented in November, stripped out all the fine language about “inquiry,” proposed that first-graders learn civics by “singing patriotic songs like ‘You’re A Grand Old Flag’” and treated Ronald Reagan like the reincarnation of George Washington. Then, unbeknownst to the board, the Youngkin administration hired a consultant, reached out to conservative historians and rewrote the standards altogether. One of his own board members, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, told me that “the Youngkin people wanted their own standards.”Īt the urging of Youngkin’s new superintendent of public instruction the board agreed to “pause” the process for a month. After GOP state legislators blocked Northam’s late-term appointments to the board, Youngkin had gained a five-person majority. Ralph Northam, but in 2021 Republican Glenn Youngkin had been elected governor, thanks in no small part to inveighing against liberal control of the schools. The standards had been prepared under Democratic Gov. But this was not a normal moment in Virginia.
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