Commentary: Administration’s politicization of history standards deserves an ‘F’

Totally unnecessary. Totally predictable.

Virginia’s prolonged, excruciating review of the state’s K-12 history and social science standards – now on its third major draft, for goodness’ sake – should’ve occurred with much less meddling by state officials. What could’ve been a straightforward exercise in updating the curriculum has become mired in politicization by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration.

I suppose this morass was preordained ever since Youngkin, on the day he was inaugurated, issued Executive Order No. One to end “critical race theory.”

Let me repeat: CRT, an academic framework that explains how race and racism affect people’s lives, isn’t taught in public schools in the commonwealth. It’s primarily a college-level course. Conservatives promoted sinister connotations of the term to boost voter turnout in elections.

The campaign talking point helped fuel Youngkin’s base, and the Republican novice was elected in 2021.

Applying such misrepresentation to the nuts-and-bolts curriculum used in schools, however, doesn’t work nearly as well. Especially when you reject the reasoned, deliberative advice of more than 200 historians, educators and others who want students to truly learn about Virginia and the nation’s past – no matter the faults or achievements.

Some background:

Under state law, the Standards of Learning for various subjects must be revised at least every seven years. The history and social science standards were originally adopted in 1995. They were set to be reviewed by 2022 in a process that began under then-Gov. Ralph Northam.

Historians, division leaders, parents, museum officials and others, working over two years, provided input for the first draft released in August. Fancy that: People with expertise in the content – not those with a political focus – were tasked with such an important job for Virginia’s children.

Jillian Balow, state superintendent of public instruction under Youngkin, then asked to delay public hearings on the standards. Administration members claimed there were typographical errors and content problems.

The president of the Virginia Board of Education said the department had the document for seven months and could’ve made corrections. Besides, over 5,000 comments had already been submitted, concerned citizens noted.

The delay had more than a whiff of political chicanery, especially because so much work took place before Youngkin became governor. His minions, some newly appointed by Youngkin to the board, were trying to override it.

A second draft was released in November. A Northam appointee on the board called it “a disaster.” As the Virginia Mercury’s Nathaniel Cline reported, Balow faced criticism for several issues, including a reference to Indigenous people as “immigrants.”

The Virginia Education Association said that draft “represents the worst kind of politically motivated meddling with academic curriculum. The standards are full of overt political bias, outdated language to describe enslaved people and American Indians, highly subjective framing of American moralism and conservative ideals, coded racist overtures throughout,” and more.

Hillsdale College in Michigan provided input for the second draft. Some critics say the conservative college has published a curriculum that’s been assailed “from renowned historians for inaccuracies and biases.”

That brings us to Draft Three, if you’re keeping score. It was released in January. The state board accepted it for review last week on a 5-3 vote, with appointees of Democratic governors opposing it. Dozens of speakers accused the newest draft of “whitewashing” parts of history and excluding issues such as the American labor movement.

Cassandra Newby-Alexander is a longtime Norfolk State University history professor. She co-chaired the African American History Education Commission, which helped craft proposed changes to the standards.  Newby-Alexander told me she’s been incensed by the gamesmanship over the history standards and has written letters to state officials about the problems. “The governor and his people want to walk us back to the 1950s,” she said.

Her Jan. 23 letter, sent after the third draft was released, contends the new Department of Education administration has chosen to ignore its own guidelines “and insert an entirely new draft for approval by the Virginia Board of Education that did not follow any process of creation or review.

“Instead, it appears to be a partisan document replete with errors so egregious that no educator will be able to follow the document and educate their students given the historical errors and chronological organization of the information.”

The latest draft “skips over most of American history, emphasizing only those areas that interprets the nation idealistically and without any critical review of the past,” the professor wrote. “Indeed, the draft approaches American history from a fundamentally flawed perspective, carefully inserting conservative themes throughout and ignoring the realities of our past, such as the long history of enslavement, discrimination, marginalization of people of color, and genocide (in some cases).”

I’ve been reporting and writing in Virginia since 1997. Though I could be mistaken, I don’t recall any previous history SOL update being so controversial.

For instance, this is how Charles Pyle, an education department spokesman, described to me the SOL history review process in 2015: A draft went to the Board of Education for first review in October 2014. The board scheduled to approve the standards in January 2015, but it was delayed for edits the board requested.

“The Board of Education approved the 2015 History and Social Science Standards of Learning in March 2015,” Pyle said by email.

That five-month timeline has already been exceeded this go-round. Only two drafts were needed in 2015, too.

Instead of mucking up the review process, state education folks should’ve focused on other critical issues. Here’s one: Try not shortchanging the money for school divisions by more than $200 million because of a calculating glitch, as Balow admitted last month.

There’s also the fight over Youngkin’s appointment of Suparna Dutta to the Board of Education. Senate Democrats, who have a majority, this week rejected the confirmation of Dutta, an Indian immigrant who has criticized progressive education policies she believes overemphasize the importance of race, as the Virginia Mercury reported.

The SOLs history controversy will allow Youngkin to tamp down on white guilt and muddy the waters over racism’s impact in America. It might be good for his future electoral aspirations.

For the state’s schoolchildren? Not at all.

by Roger Chesley, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sarah Vogelsong for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.