Richmond’s ABC affiliate reports:
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is overhauling former Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration’s proposal that would have set history and social science standards in Virginia schools.
Youngkin’s VDOE’s new draft proposal would determine what students learn about American history and Virginia history inside the classroom.
If adopted by the Virginia Board of Education, the new standards will be in effect for seven years starting in the 2024-2025 school year. Professional development would begin in the summer of 2023, according to a fact sheet that was sent to legislators and obtained by 7News.
The Washington Post reports:
The old guidelines call for lessons teaching that “Indigenous People were the first inhabitants of the land that we now call Virginia and the United States” and that “multiple tribes have always and continue to live in Virginia and the United States today.” The new guidelines do not mention Indigenous peoples, instead stating that students should learn to “describe life of Virginia’s earliest settlements.”
The old guidelines suggest students learn about a wide variety of holidays and traditions including Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Juneteenth and the Fourth of July. The new guidelines only mention learning about Presidents’ Day. Finally, the new guidelines delete a suggestion from the previous version that kindergartners be taught “respect for diversity.”
The proposed Standards by @GovernorVA removes MLK, Jr. from the elementary curriculum. This selective erasure of one of the most prominent people of color in American history calls into question this entire revision of the proposed Standards. #erasure https://t.co/AQaGsXt5u6 pic.twitter.com/u2zigj2aZs
— Wesley Hedgepeth (@wehedge) November 15, 2022
Governor Youngkin’s new history standards require Marc Antony in elementary school but not MLK Jr.
Never forget he kicked Virginia’s Teacher of the Year — Anthony Swann, a Black man — off the Board of Education so he could ram this through. https://t.co/CiLNsKIbpR
— Sally Hudson (@SallyLHudson) November 15, 2022
Buddy, you don’t teach patriotism, you run a government that deserves it.https://t.co/eddxnpuI0Q
— Joshua Cole (@JoshuaCole) November 15, 2022