The National Association of Scholars (NAS) and the Civics Alliance are delighted and honored that the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) has published draft social studies standards that have been significantly informed by American Birthright: The Civics Alliance’s Model K-12 State Standards and by our History of Communism: Model State Academic Standards for Social Studies. We believe that OSDE has done excellent work to improve Oklahoma’s draft social studies standards, which are significantly strengthened from the previous version. Secretary Ryan Walters has accomplished a substantial service for Oklahoma citizens by issuing these draft standards.
We urge Oklahoma citizens to provide public comment in favor of these standards and we hope that Oklahoma’s state legislature will give its approval to them.
The Oklahoma standards have incorporated the material informed by our work within Oklahoma’s older social studies standards framework—a framework which itself is ultimately informed by the National Council for the Social Studies’ counterproductive College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. We regret that OSDE has, for the present, foregone an opportunity to implement the best possible social studies standards. While this current round of revision is an excellent start, we hope that OSDE will build upon it in the future to provide the fundamental structural reform that Oklahoma’s social studies standards still need. Oklahoma can and must do better than the C3 Framework as a basis for its social studies instruction.
We urge Oklahoma citizens, when they provide public comment in favor of these standards, also to urge OSDE to amend parts of the draft standards where, as we note in greater detail below, OSDE has foregone opportunities for reform. We urge OSDE, the State Board of Education, and Oklahoma legislators to make further revisions of the draft standards that would make Oklahoma’s social studies standards the best in the nation.
This does not mean we want OSDE simply to copy-and-paste American Birthright and History of Communism. We published these materials to be models, to be adapted by states and school districts to suit their local conditions and traditions. We are delighted that OSDE’s draft social studies standards have been informed by our materials—and any reader can tell at a glance how much OSDE has kept of its previous materials, how many of their changes which run parallel to our suggestions are clearly their own words and thoughts, and how many of our suggestions they have politely declined. OSDE’s draft Oklahoma standards are emphatically Oklahoman standards and Oklahomans have decided which of our materials are appropriate to use. This is as it should be. Oklahoma should not kowtow to the National Council for the Social Studies; neither should it kowtow to any outside group. Oklahomans should be proud that OSDE makes its own decisions.
We do particularly welcome the elements of the OSDE revision that American Birthright and History of Communism informed most strongly. While this is not a comprehensive list, we believe these are particularly good improvements to the previous standards:
- Grades K-8, Required Courses: The draft standard makes some improvements throughout, most strongly in Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 4. Grade 1, for example, now states that “The student will analyze their role as a citizen in a community. … Examine ways citizens can demonstrate patriotism, including military service, honoring veteran cemeteries, and celebrating Independence Day. [1.1; 1.1.6.E] Grade 5 now includes in its coverage of colonial America explicit mention of “Thomas Hooker’s influence in formulating the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.” [5.2.1.D] Grade 7 now includes “Describe influences of early English tradition related to the principles of limited government and individual rights, such as found in the Magna Carta and established by the English Bill of Rights.” [7.6.2.C]
- United States Government and Modern World History, High School Required Courses: The draft standard significantly improves these courses. United States Government, for example, includes extended and discrete coverage of the scope and powers of the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. [USG 4.1, USG 4.2, USG 4.4] Modern World History includes “Assess the effect of anticommunist policies of President Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II, as well as Western diplomacy initiated by individuals, such as Willy Brandt, and resistance movements led by individuals, such as Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa.” [MWH 7.6.E]
- United States History, Oklahoma History, and Economics, High School Required Courses: The draft standard improves these courses, although not by as much as the improvements to United States Government and World History. United States History, for example, includes “Describe the transition from wartime to peace under the Harding Administration, including the demobilization of drafted soldiers, federal budget cuts, and amnesty for political prisoners.” [USH 4.1.B] Oklahoma History includes “Describe the effect of intertribal division based on Tribal support of the Union or Confederacy, as exemplified by Opothleyahola and the Trail of Blood on Ice.” [OKH 3.1.A] Economics includes “Analyze how the Federal Reserve attempts to effectuate price stability, full employment, and economic growth via monetary tools (e.g., changes in the discount rate, reserve requirements, and the money supply).” [E 10.6]
- Ancient and Medieval World History, High School Elective: The draft standard adds this elective, which provides substantial material on Ancient and Medieval Western Civilization. This is a wonderful improvement. Ancient and Medieval World History, for example, includes “Analyze the causes, course, and consequences of the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars [and] explain the significance of Pericles’ Funeral Oration” [AWH 6.5]; “Trace the rise of Anglo-Saxon England, the Danish invasions, and the influence of Alfred the Great.” [AWH 9.5.C]; and “Describe the rise and fall of the Mughal Empire, including important political, economic, and cultural aspects of early modern Indian history (e.g., rise and development of the Sikh religion and states, Portuguese maritime hegemony, Mughal tolerance and persecution of Hindus).” [AWH 11.2]
- History of 20th Century Totalitarianism, High School Elective: The draft standard adds this elective, which provides dedicated coverage of the evils of Communism, Fascism, and Nazism. This also is a wonderful improvement. History of 20th Century Totalitarianism includes, for example, “Describe the origins, purpose, and conditions associated with various types of camps, including forced labor camps, concentration camps, transit camps, and death camps (e.g., Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, Treblinka).” [TOT 8.7]; “Examine the USSR’s occupation of Eastern Europe after World War II, including Soviet Communization of Eastern Europe, the coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia, chronic rebellions in the Eastern Bloc (e.g., East German Uprising, Hungarian Uprising, “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia, and “Solidarity” in Poland) and neutrality of Finland and Austria.” [TOT 10.1]; and “Examine the development of American Communism, including Soviet coordination of Western Communist party tactics, Communist “front” movements, and attempts to infiltrate and co-opt organized labor.” [TOT 10.5].
These improvements, generally, increase detailed content knowledge, strengthen knowledge of Western Civilization and American history, and strengthen coverage of the histories and the nature of America’s ideals and institutions of liberty, faith, civic virtue, and self-government—as well as of the challenges posed to these ideals and institutions by tyrannies such as Nazism and Communism.
We also welcome OSDE’s decision to make their social studies standards more accurate by acknowledging the extraordinarily influence of the Bible and Judeo-Christian belief on Western Civilization and on America’s ideals and institutions of liberty, republican self-government, and civic virtue. The continuing importance of Judeo-Christian faith in America is registered by the very names of Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Martin Luther King, Jr., which convey the continuing importance in America of Abraham, St. Thomas, and Martin Luther. Radical activists who wish to erase religion from America slander as “Christian nationalism” any attempt to tell the true story of how faith and liberty have sustained each other in the West and in America. We urge Oklahoma’s citizens and Oklahoma’s elected representatives to reject this slander—which they can tell is false simply by reading OSDE’s draft standards for themselves.
At the same time, as we have stated above, the draft revision has foregone several opportunities for reform. We particularly note:
- Practice Standards: The draft revision retains “practices” to be applied to all social studies instruction. These “practices,” informed by the C3 Framework, remain a lead weight and a radicalizing influence on Oklahoma’s social studies instruction. They should be removed.
- Grades K-8, Required Courses: These courses retain the standard, progressive structure. This structure provides too little material on the American nation in the earliest years and virtually no coverage of the history of Western Civilization. OSDE in its next round of revision certainly would benefit Oklahoma’s students by incorporating spiraling sequences of instruction in American history and Western Civilization in Grades K-8.
- Psychology, Sociology, and World Geography, High School Electives: The draft revision has left these largely unchanged. These should be thoroughly revised.
- World History Framework: OSDE has preserved the framework of World History and Ancient and Medieval World History, which inevitably dilutes and fragments the coherent narrative of Western history which students need to understand how the Founding Fathers thought and what they intended as they framed our Republic. OSDE in its next revision should provide dedicated coverage in discrete courses to the history of Western Civilization, as well as a discrete course of World History outside the West.
- Elective: Ancient and Medieval World History should be transformed from an elective to a required high school social studies course.
- Content Knowledge: While the draft revision provides substantially more content knowledge than the previous revision, it still remains much less thorough than American Birthright or History of Communism. OSDE in its next round of revision would benefit by a further round of strengthening content knowledge in every course standard.
- Pedagogy: We believe OSDE generally would strengthen its draft social standards by a shift in emphasis toward spiraling instruction, memorization and recitation, and intensive study of primary sources, especially the documents of liberty from the Magna Carta to the Declaration of Independence to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
We urge OSDE, the State Board of Education, and Oklahoma legislators to make further revisions in this round of social studies standards revision. If they judge that further revision is not appropriate this year, we urge OSDE to engage in more comprehensive reform of its social studies standards in its next round of revision—but we say that at the same time that we say that we are delighted with the excellent work OSDE has done with this draft social studies standard to improve Oklahoma social studies education. We are extraordinarily pleased that our materials could be useful to Secretary Ryan Walters, and to everyone at the Oklahoma State Department of Education, as they made this revision. Oklahoma has positioned itself to accomplish the pioneering social studies reform of this generation.
By Oklahoma Legislative Services Bureau - Oklahoma Legislative Services Bureau, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=153248928
