There are several aspects of the January 6, 2023 standards that we find to be unacceptable, and we urge the Virginia Board of Education to adopt the December 20, 2022 “Collaborative Standards” at their upcoming meeting on February 2, 2023.  We believe that the January 6, 2023 standards have unacceptable because their development did not follow the established process, they encourage rote memorization, they are developmentally inappropriate, they contain several omissions and mistakes, and they mandate an overhaul in course sequencing.

1. PROCESS: Much like the November 2022 standards that were rejected by the Virginia Board of Education, the January 2023 standards were developed in isolation without the involvement of outside experts. State Superintendent Jillian Balow has recently claimed that this draft involved “input from more than 200 reviewers,” but that claim is misleading and disingenuous given that the contributions of these reviewers were part of the established process that led to the development of the original August 2022 standards that were intentionally delayed and rejected by State Superintendent Balow. Not only did she reject the work of a transparent and inclusive process, but shen betrayed public trust by hiring Sheila Byrd Carmichael as a single consultant to oversee a complete rewrite of the August standards based upon feedback solicited from overtly ideological institutions such as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Hillsdale College. This resulted in the November 2022 standards as a complete overhaul that contained glaring mistakes and omissions such as referring to Indigenous people as “America’s First Immigrants” and initially eliminating pivotal Black Americans from the elementary school such as Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, and Jackie Robinson. This overhaul led to widespread public outcry and the Virginia Board of Education declined to accept the November 2022 standards for first review.  Even the hired consultant subsequently described the rewritten standards as “flawed” and “hastily and irresponsibly” prepared. The unprecedented violation of the established and time-honored process has not been repaired and the January 2023 draft from the Superintendent Balow suffers from the same lack of transparency and breach of public trust.

2. ROTE MEMORIZATION: The January 2023 standards are simply not viable because they are overburdened with an excessive amount of required content that cannot reasonably be taught in a given school year. These standards will lead to more rote instruction that will emphasize memorization at the expense of deeper learning, understanding, and skill development. For example, there are 187 different people featured in the Janurary 2023 Standards by name. This amount of content knowledge is unrealistic, unsustainable, and poorly designed. If adopted, this will adversely impact social studies education and create insurmountable obstacles to best-practice instruction. Insert comment about inquiry?         

3. DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPTIATE: There are several examples of developmentally inappropriate content that is far too complex for adolescent children. Requiring teachers to address content that is above the cognitive abilities of their classes will put them in the uncomfortable position of adhering to required state standards vs.committing educational malpractice against their students. For example,

• 2nd graders are required to learn about the War of 1812, which is a very complex confict involving expansion, international trade, and maritime rights.

• 2nd graders are required to learn about complex figures such as Steve Jobs, Jonas Salk, and Neil Armstrong that would require considerable context for students truly understand them such as microchips, vaccinations, and NASA.

• 4th graders are required to learn about the Supreme Court case of Green v. New Kent County that dealt with “freedom of choice” plans that served to circumvent desegregation in public schools following the decision in Brown II. While certainly significant, the case is far too detailed and complex for 4th graders, and it is much more suitable in 11th grade VA/U.S. History.  

4. OMISSIONS AND MISTAKES: In addition to developmentally inappropriate content, the January 2023 standards contain several omissions and mistakes and will seriously undermine its credibility as a professional standards document. For example,

• Indigenous Peoples’ Day has been removed as a holiday that students learn about.

• The Wounded Knee Massacre where nearly 300 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux were murdered in South Dakota by the U.S. 7th Cavalry is not referenced as a “massacre” and it is described in the standards as a “conflict with the U.S. Government.”

• All previous standards dealing with the history of labor unions, strikes, and improved working conditions has been entirety removed

• Chronology issues….example…

5. COURSE SEQUENCING OVERHAUL: The January 2023 Standards mandate a specific course sequence that will cause major disruptions as school divisions struggle to redesign learning materials and resources for courses in grades 5-9. If adopted, this mandate would move middle school courses to elementary and high school courses to middle school. This also has the potential to create major staffing issues as teachers will have to change teaching assignments, grade levels, and even schools. The altered sequence of courses negatively impacts students who are already in the middle of a particular course sequence. Publishing companies and education departments have created grade-appropriate materials to accompany the current SOL sequence. Making these drastic changes without allowing time for the creation of high-quality, enriching, age-appropriate supporting documents is disruptive of student learning and will negatively impact social studies education.

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Possible additional categories?

-There are several grammatical, spelling, and formatting errors. Chronology Issues

-The rewrite of the proposed Standards is also full of historical errors and inaccuracies.