The Latest from VEA

The following statement is in response to the November 12 release of Proposed Revised 2022 History and Social Science Standards of Learning by the Virginia Department of Education, and can be attributed to Dr. James J. Fedderman, President of the Virginia Education Association:

The draft history standards released on Friday 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 The standards are full of overt political bias, outdated language to describe enslaved people and American Indians, highly subjective framing of American moralism and conservative ideals, coded racist overtures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, requirements for teachers to present histories of discrimination and racism as “balanced” “without personal or political bias”, and restrictions on allowance of “teacher-created curriculum”, which is allowed in all other subject areas. Worse yet, these standards appear to have been taken largely from the far-right Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum, which we’ve seen implemented in other conservative states such as Tennessee, Florida, and South Dakota.

By contrast, the history standards presented earlier this summer were carefully and professionally created, the result of extensive input from both the state’s and our nation’s top historians and curriculum experts. Thousands of comments, from both history educators and the public, were submitted and incorporated. The sequencing by theme, higher level of rigor for making connections, and overall pedagogy were all designed in a thoughtful manner promoting rich discussions and critical thinking.

The quality of these two sets of standards, and the process by which they were created, could not have been more different. These new history standards do not reflect the commitment to academic rigor that have help make Virginian public schools so successful, nor do they reflect the values of Virginians. VEA calls for partisan shenanigans to be put aside and to return to a history curriculum developed by academics for the benefit of our children, not by out-of-state special-interest groups for their own political gain.