But the normally staid and little-noticed revision process became embroiled in political controversy in recent months when Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s appointees to the state education board stepped in to halt the process. Led by the five-member Youngkin majority, the board rejected a more-than-400-page version of the standards that had been in the works for months and was a result of consultations with historians, museums, economists, political scientists, geographers, parents, students, professors and teachers. In its place, the board proposed a slimmed-down 53-page version of the standards that quickly drew criticism from left-leaning politicians and education advocates for minimizing the experiences and contributions of historically marginalized people, especially Native Americans.
The third version of the standards, published online Friday by Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, appears intended to incorporate and address some of those critiques. It includes language, lacking in the previous version, that explicitly notes that America’s history is fraught and complicated and must be taught with nuance and honesty. There are also some grade-level changes in content that place greater emphasis on Native American and non-White people. Friday’s guidelines, unlike previous versions, explicitly mandates discussions of racism.
“Students will know our nation’s exceptional strengths, including individual innovation, moral character, ingenuity and adventure,” the guidelines state, “while learning from terrible periods and actions in direct conflict with these ideals.”
Balow said in a call with reporters Friday afternoon that the standards are on track to be approved for the 2024-2025 school year. She said the latest version has been cleansed of “errors and omissions.”
“What parents across the Commonwealth want is for students to learn all of the history, the good and the bad, and learn it in an honest and concise and fact-based way,” Balow said. “These standards represent exactly that.”
One of the alterations to the guidelines is a new section titled “Implementation of Virginia’s History and Social Science Standards,” which was lacking from the previous version. It lays out a broad framework for teaching history in Virginia that seems to be an attempt to navigate left-leaning and right-leaning theories of appropriate education.
For example, one bullet point in this section states “students should be exposed to the facts of our past, even when those facts are uncomfortable” — but adds that “teachers should engage students in age-appropriate ways that do not suggest students are responsible for historical wrongs based on immutable characteristics, such as race or ethnicity.”
The latter part of the bullet point seems targeted to address right-wing concerns that teachers are forcing White children to feel guilty for the consequences of American slavery, an argument that has gained currency among conservatives in recent years.
Similarly, another bullet point notes that “teachers must facilitate open and balanced discussions on difficult topics, including discrimination and racism” — but that they must do so “without personal or political bias.”
And, in apparent recognition of right-wing concerns that parents are being cut out of the public school system, a third bullet point states that “parents should have open access to all instructional materials utilized in any Virginia public school.”
Other changes relate to grade-level instruction.
The previous version drew anger from left-leaning education advocates and politicians for failing to suggest that young students celebrate a wide variety of holidays — and leaving out mention of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. until fifth grade. The version released this week suggests that students, starting in kindergarten, learn about 12 holidays including Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The new guidelines also place more focus on teaching students about the contributions of “Indigenous Peoples past and present” — lessons that start in second grade. The previous version of the guidelines lacked proposed lessons on contemporary Native American populations.
But in this new version, lessons for fourth-graders will include “describing the lives [of] Indigenous peoples leading to the present day, and those living in Virginia today.”
The new guidelines furthermore restore classes for third-graders on ancient societies in China and Mali, which had been cut from the previous version but were included in the first proposed version of the guidelines. The new guidelines also restore third-grade geography lessons about all seven major continents — rather than just European countries, as had been proposed in the second, most recent version of the guidelines. The first version suggested lessons about all seven continents.
The latest round of revisions come as Youngkin and his allies in Virginia state government have made public schools in Virginia and nationwide a significant target for criticism. Youngkin alleges that school systems are teaching students in politically inappropriate ways and they are not sufficiently respecting the rights of parents to remain involved in their children’s education.
At least some Youngkin allies are suggesting that parents abandon public schools entirely. This week, a group of Republican lawmakers, including Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R), backed a newly proposed bill, the Education Success Account Program, which would grant state money to public-school parents who want to switch their child — if “qualified” — into a “private elementary or secondary school that is located in the Commonwealth.”
