In an echo of what happened last year in South Dakota, unnamed state officials in Louisiana have rewritten an educator-drafted set of K-12 history expectations after fielding politicized claims that it embodied a negative view of America.
尝辞耻颈蝉颈补苍补鈥檚 which its state board of education approved unanimously March 9, differs substantially both in content and overall approach from what its own committee of educators submitted last September.
The Pelican State鈥檚 completed standards are far more detailed and specific than the earlier draft, especially in U.S. History and civics. And while officials at the Louisiana education department fleshed out content on slavery, civil rights, and important Black luminaries, they also removed the prior draft鈥檚 many references to 鈥渄iverse groups,"鈥攊ncluding its sole mention of LGBTQ people.
Some of the original writers protest the completed standards鈥� different emphasis, which they say focuses less on historical inquiry, a teaching method that requires coverage of fewer topics in more depth.
鈥淭eachers had complained that even starting after Reconstruction, it鈥檚 hard to get through all the material, and here they鈥檝e added 200 years,鈥� said Lynn Walters-Rauenhorst, a teacher-educator who worked on the high school standards. 鈥淭here was never a time where the department came to us and said, 鈥榃e have concerns with this. Can we wordsmith it?鈥�
鈥淚 think it just speaks in general to the continued attack on teachers and their professionalism,鈥� she said.
About the only thing everyone agrees on is that the new set emphasizes American exceptionalism. State Superintendent Cade Brumley, in an interview, called the standards a 鈥渇reedom framework鈥� that shows how Americans have continued to perfect their country.
Some of these tensions鈥攂etween specificity and flexibility, patriotism and critique鈥攁re inherent in the difficult challenge of writing K-12 history expectations. Plenty of room for disagreement exists.
But the situation also reflects a seething political maelstrom over what students should learn about the country鈥檚 past that has engulfed several states鈥� attempts to update their expectations. The development in Louisiana is also, potentially, a bigger symptom of how these disagreements are affecting governance: The revision of content standards behind closed doors remains a rare phenomenon, but it鈥檚 getting less rare.
鈥淚n general, we鈥檝e got this erosion of trust and belief that the experts really are experts, replaced with the idea that all experts are really ideological hacks,鈥� said Paul Manna, a professor of political science at the College of William and Mary, who studies public policymaking in education. 鈥淭here鈥檚 just a loss of respect for opinions based on research and evidence.鈥�
A look at the changes
In all, the situation has echoes of what happened last year in South Dakota, when the state department significantly altered a draft of standards teachers and experts had put together. And as in that state, Louisiana officials haven鈥檛 disclosed who precisely made the revisions.
Here are some of the changes Louisiana officials made to the September 2021 draft:
- It puts more emphasis on foundational documents, like the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Declaration of Independence, which are referenced in several grades.
- Third grade is now a continuation of the 2nd grade focus on U.S. foundations. The earlier draft made 3rd grade the beginning of a sequence on world history.
- The final standards strike the earlier draft鈥檚 references鈥攁bout a dozen in all鈥攖o 鈥渄iverse individuals,鈥� 鈥渄iverse groups,鈥� or 鈥渄iverse cultures.鈥� And they omit the former draft鈥檚 single reference to LGBTQ people.
- The department eliminated a standard that asked students to analyze a contemporary problem, evaluate the expense and feasibility of solutions, and construct an argument in favor of one of them, apparently over concerns about 鈥渁ction civics.鈥�
- The standards preserve and even expand a focus on slavery, referencing the topic more than 30 times鈥攆ar more than the earlier draft鈥攁nd contain specific expectations for students to learn about the Middle Passage, the dependence of the country鈥檚 economics on slavery, and the civil rights movement鈥檚 key developments.
- The high school history class begins with the traditional topic of the Jamestown settlement in 1607; the original draft envisioned beginning in 1898, giving teachers more time to dig into 20th century content.
Brumley said many of the changes were made in direct response to the public feedback on the original draft, which was generally negative. But it is not clear how representative that feedback was of parents鈥� opinions at large: Education Week found that many of those comments were cut and pasted National Association of Scholars.
Education Week is providing in-depth coverage on how history is taught in the U.S. Look back at this story about how the 鈥渃ritical race theory鈥� debate is crashing headlong into efforts to update social studies standards.
In any case, state officials used the Thomas B. Fordham Institute鈥檚 to identify other states deemed to have strong expectations; they drew on those states鈥� standards to shape the final draft. (The right-leaning nonprofit has tended to give higher marks to standards that are specific and detailed, rather than broad.)
鈥淚 think the standards we put forward are very balanced,鈥� Brumely said. 鈥淲e made the decision that we wanted to be very inclusive of content, tell as much of the story of our country and state鈥檚 history as time would allow in a given academic year. We corrected the course sequencing, and we tried to add rigor, which I feel like we did, and include multiple historical perspectives, which I know we did.鈥�
The standards鈥� specificity also explains the elimination of the adjective 鈥渄iverse,鈥� Brumley said.
鈥淚nstead of using a broad word, [we wanted to] be much more specific with the content experienced by diverse individuals in state of Louisiana and in our country,鈥� he said, noting that he鈥檇 had 鈥渉undreds鈥� of conversations with parents and community members on this issue. 鈥淚 tried to capture and relay back to our team some of the most important events and individuals that people felt like should be captured.鈥�
That did not, apparently, include LGBTQ Americans. The removal of that standard, Brumley said, was directly linked to the public comments: 鈥淲e saw a pattern of feedback of people who did not feel that high school civics was the place for discussions around sexual orientation.鈥�
Some of the writers of the original drafts say those changes traduce the very tenets the state education board laid out for the process, which included shifting to an approach that prioritizes historical inquiry using primary sources.
The changes, Walters-Rauenhorst said, instead seem to straight-jacket teachers.
An attempt to remove 鈥楥RT,鈥� or just cynical politics?
The subtext to the situation in Louisiana鈥攁s in other states鈥攈as been the national debate over whether and how to teach about the history of American racism, at what grade and age levels, and its connection to public policy today.
When the original draft was made public last year, commentators accused the writers of embedding critical race theory into the standards, a charge they vehemently denied. The feedback at public meetings got so intense that the state department had to change safety protocols, escorting the educators back to their cars and reducing the number of people allowed to comment at a time.
(Critical race theory is an academic framework that posits that racism can be embedded in laws, structures, and policies. Critics of this idea have since applied the term to a host of other diversity initiatives and training.)
Brumley has demurred on whether he personally believes the initial draft contained critical race theory, but he has pointed to this public feedback as one rationale for the changes.
For some of the writers, cynical politics鈥攏ot a commitment to excellence鈥攅xplain the changes. The new draft effectively allows state officials to take a victory lap by claiming that they鈥檝e removed critical race theory, contends Aaron Jura, a former teacher who contributed to the earlier drafts. He now writes curriculum.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e using this whole narrative to support the idea they鈥檙e the saviors from these rogue classroom teachers and historians,鈥� said Jura, who said he spent hours of unpaid labor reviewing drafts and driving to Baton Rouge for public meetings. 鈥淚 honestly feel like they鈥檙e using us as chumps.鈥�
The department鈥檚 changes, unveiled in February, prompted about 400 additional public comments. This time the feedback focused less on critical race theory and more about the standards鈥� level of specificity, which attracted both criticism and praise from teachers and parents.
And while some commentators appreciated the more-detailed focus on slavery and civil rights, others felt the standards amounted to a type of grab-bag diversity focused on specific names and events, rather than on students鈥� understanding and interrogating this hard history.
The debate may not yet be over, as Louisiana officials begin to grapple with how to provide training, model lessons, and supports for teachers to put the new standards into action.
Louisiana legislators haven鈥檛 approved a bill to circumscribe how teachers can talk about race, as some 15 other states have, but similar proposals are currently being debated in the statehouse. If one of them does pass, it could be on a collision course with the standards.
For example, under the new standards, 8th graders will read 鈥淟etter from a Birmingham Jail,鈥� in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously deplored 鈥渢he white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice,鈥� and noted that 鈥渙ppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.鈥� But pending legislation would prevent teachers from using resources that present some people as 鈥渄isadvantaged, privileged, underprivileged, biased, or oppressed relative to another.鈥�
One high school standard now says that students will be expected to 鈥渆xplain how slavery contributed to U.S. industrial and economic growth.鈥� It鈥檚 unclear how can they do that without discussing racist systems and structures.
What does it say about governance at large?
Apart from disagreements about content, some of the former standards-writers say they鈥檙e concerned about the message that the upended process sends: Why would teachers, they said, ever volunteer to contribute to a time-consuming, unpaid process in the future, now that the state has shown that their work can be eviscerated at the stroke of a pen?
Said one unnamed writer, who submitted via the public comments: 鈥淚 am left wondering what the purpose was of convening a statewide group of committee members鈥攎any of whom participated in working groups tasked with the hard work of drafting, receiving feedback on, revising, and finalizing a carefully considered set of revised standards with no financial compensation鈥攊f their work was to be discarded and overwritten outside of the established process.鈥�
It鈥檚 not illegal, or even unprecedented, for politicians or civil servants to interfere in standards-writing. Education Week has documented multiple such instances in science over hot-button topics like evolution and climate change. Now it appears to be on the rise in social studies, a discipline whose inherent subjectivity makes such changes harder to counter.
A few days before the Louisiana board voted to approve the standards, nine of the 28 members of the steering committee asking for the standards to be returned to them, in accordance with the process the board initially laid out. More members were sympathetic but chose not to sign on, fearing for their jobs, Walters-Rauenhorst said. (Louisiana does not require public-sector collective bargaining, and teachers often have fewer job protections.)
But Brumley says the state board gave the department the green light to make its changes when it approved a motion last December asking it to take the public feedback into consideration for the final draft.
Manna, the political science professor, said the point of having advisory boards鈥攍ike the steering committee in Louisiana鈥攊s to help elected or appointed officials craft the best policies. But as with health experts over vaccinations and scientists over climate change, there鈥檚 a growing phenomenon of distrust, and even rejection, of what they bring to the table.
鈥淚f there鈥檚 this erosion of trust in experts, then the elected officials really aren鈥檛 going to pay too much attention, and it wouldn鈥檛 seem unusual that they would rewrite entire sections of things based on their own opinions about what they think is right,鈥� he said.
In the end, what frustrates Walters-Rauenhorst most is that none of the people who spouted off at public meetings about critical race theory were ever asked to provide any evidence that it was in the standards. That鈥檚 a bitterly ironic twist, given that social studies is a field where teachers expect students to marshal and analyze evidence when they make arguments.
鈥淚 think we have to move on from Louisiana specifically,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he reality is that this is a pattern of behavior across the country, and we鈥檙e not holding people to account for it.鈥�
