The Battle for History Standards in Minnesota

January 26, 2004

Excellent news from Minnesota!

We've posted previously about our dismay at poorly written standards, especially those at the state level, which is quite a few levels away from the classroom that the standards can be--and have frequently been--disfigured into an incomprehensible mess.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Now, in Minnesota, they've completed the final draft of their Social Studies standards (pdf), an announcement not notable in and of itself, for states are constantly writing standards documents across the U.S.

What is notable, however, is who did the work, and who was leading them. From Minnesota Education Reform News, which has been all over this story:

The [forty committee] members were appointed by Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke from over 600 applicants from across Minnesota. The committees consist of parents, teachers, administrators, college professors, businesspeople, and other Minnesota citizens.

In other words, the committee wasn't just made of educators (a major plus), and only about 7% of those who applied were selected. You may also recognize the good Commissioner from our story yesterday--she's the author of The War Against Excellence.

It seems she's declaring war on ideological, vague, or overwrought standards.

While the standards aren't without criticism (one History professor wrote they were "screwball" and "transparently ideological"), the reviews have been very favorable. One interesting phenomena is the outpouring of support for the standards from college and university professors. In higher education, professors usually see the aftermath of K-12 education: their incoming students don't know anything!

Within the social sciences, twenty-four professors co-signed a letter which made some interesting points:

In our experience, too many high school graduates lack the basic grasp of human institutions and of the physical world that ought to be presumed for college-level courses. We continually meet students who have no clue when the Renaissance was, or do not know what the word ‘monarchy’ means, or cannot tell, on a map of the world, which country is France and which is China.

A big reason why students don't know where anything is located is that the term Geography has been co-opted to be next to meaningless. Instead of studying actual places around the country and the globe, students learn the Five Themes of Geography which emphasize process over facts, and cultures over location. The students end up learning not much geography at all.

The professors continue:

But part of the problem stems from a curricular philosophy that makes Social Studies a field unto itself, with history and geography coming into play only insofar as they supply materials for discussing contemporary issues.

In other words, Social Studies has become a bloated form of Current Events.

Twenty-six professors outside the social sciences signed a letter of their own, stating, "The proposed History/Social Studies K-12 Standards will move Minnesota to a content-rich education for our children."

EdWatch wrote of the new standards:

However, in the proposed standards, students will learn states, capitals, countries, and major physical features of the world. That's real progress! The committees included [that] the U.S. economy is "primarily a free market system" that is regulated by supply and demand, and the role of entrepreneurship is highlighted. That, too, is major progress . . .

At this point, the non-educators in the group are probably asking, "What's the big deal? Isn't that just common sense?" You are absolutely right, but unfortunately our academic standards have taken a beating in the past few decades by the forces advocating a dumbed-down, vagued-out curriculum.

This new set of Social Studies standards are a breath of fresh air. One of our favorite Education Reform authors, Diane Ravitch, had this (pdf) to say (emphasis ours):

I read the draft of the Minnesota standards for history and social studies and want to commend you for the careful work that went into them. The old standards for Minnesota were simply dreadful. They were vague generalities that provided no guidance to teachers, students, parents, or anyone else. The new standards, however, are clear and crisp. They identify what students will be expected to learn in each grade.

Any questions?