WILLIAMSBURG — Two members of the state Board of Education who hosted a public hearing Monday night on Virginia’s proposed K-12 history standards heard from some new voices, compared to those who usually speak at meetings in Richmond.
Several speakers talked about their preference for Judeo-Christian values that they believe are present in the K-12 history standards proposed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, which when approved will guide the teaching of history in Virginia for the next seven years.
More than 100 people gathered at the Jamestown Settlement museum to voice their opinion on the proposed standards, which critics have characterized as an undermining of the histories of people of color.
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At previous public hearings in Richmond, almost every person spoke out against the Youngkin administration’s proposal. On Monday night, those who oppose the rewritten standards remained in the vast majority, but supporters showed up in greater numbers.
“Public school students deserve to know the truth, that our heroic founding fathers ... gave us the Constitution, the best government system in the world, which was founded on timeless Judeo-Christian values,” said a woman who identified herself as a former teacher.
The state education department released a new draft of K-12 history standards in November that was developed over the course of a few months, disregarding a draft document developed under then-Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration over the course of nearly two years.
The revision, which critics described as a whitewash of history, triggered scathing pushback from Virginians. Youngkin expressed disappointment in the document, admitting “omissions and mistakes.” The state Board of Education, with a majority appointed by Youngkin, in November rejected the first revision by the Youngkin administration.
The state education department under Youngkin developed a second reworking of the proposal, which fixed many of the errors. Several prominent organizations still oppose it, including the Virginia NAACP, the American Historical Association and the Virginia Asian American and Pacific Islander Caucus.
The state Board of Education voted 5-3 last month to move forward on the Youngkin administration’s second rewrite of the K-12 history standards.
The new Youngkin document does not reference the ongoing legacy of slavery and its effects on today’s society.
“The standards politicized history so severely that content is distorted, especially the history of slavery,” said Tuska Benes, chair of the history department at the College of William & Mary. “The standards wrongly ascribed sole responsibility for the transatlantic slave trade to Western African empires.”
It does, however, contain some new teaching requirements that were not mentioned in the original Northam document, including references to Japanese internment camps, hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and about Sen. Hiram Revels of Mississippi, the first African American to serve in Congress.
The state education department added several issues to the latest draft that were omitted from the first revision, including the Chinese Exclusion Act and the gay rights movement.
Board members who voted against the second rewrite by the Youngkin administration wanted to at least strike the document’s politically charged introduction.
The introduction to the Youngkin administration’s proposal states 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.”
Educators and critics have pushed back on the statement, which they say implies educators have been making children feel guilty for historical wrongs of their ancestors.
A recent study from the international research and civic action group More in Common expands a growing body of research that shows the majority of U.S. adults across political parties agree on the fundamental ideas about how U.S. history should be taught. Although Americans disagree on where to draw the line between past and present, most agree that educators should teach the good and bad of American history.
New research suggests that debates around “history wars,” like the one underway in Virginia, are warping Americans’ ideas of what the other side of the political spectrum believes about what should be taught in schools.
“Many Republicans believe most Democrats want to teach a history defined by shameful oppression and white guilt,” the study states. And, “Many Democrats believe most Republicans want to focus on the white majority and overlook slavery and racism.”
The study finds that both impressions are wrong.
About 83% of Democrats believe students should not be made to feel guilty or personally responsible for the errors of prior generations, but Republicans estimate that number to be 43%.
Meanwhile, about 93% of Republicans believe that Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix our mistakes, while Democrats estimate that only 35% of Republicans have that belief.
Youngkin said again in a CNN town hall last week that he wants Virginia students to learn about “all of our history – the good and the bad.”
“What had crept into our systems were divisive concepts ... that had curriculum and materials that were forcing our children to judge one another,” Youngkin said.
On Monday night, Virginians spoke not only to the contents of the standards, but also on the secretive process by which they were created.
“What has happened during the process of the social studies standards review has been unprecedented, and it has been led not by the people in this room, but by others who have sought to use Virginia’s educational future as a platform for political gain,” said Sam Futrell, president of the Virginia Council for the Social Studies.
The board had been set to vote on the original Northam draft in August, but then-state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow urged the board to delay a vote to give more time for review by Youngkin’s newly appointed members.
Despite a statement from a VDOE official, who said at the time that the department did not anticipate making significant changes, the draft released in November was an entirely different document containing several botches.
Balow, who led the state Department of Education since her appointment in January 2021, resigned last week without providing a reason.
The Monday evening public hearing in Williamsburg was the first of six that will be hosted in different areas of the commonwealth over the next two weeks.
Two members of the state Board of Education were present Monday night: board President Daniel Gecker, a holdover member appointed to a second term by Northam, and Grace Creasey, a Youngkin appointee.
Virginia Department of Education staff will work to review public comments and incorporate warranted edits. The board intends to adopt a final version of the document in April.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly attributed a quote from Tuska Benes, chair of the history department at the College of William & Mary.
