Academic Standards Public Hearings
Academic
Standards Hearing
View Academic Standards and give comments online
October 28, 2003
Come to the Review of
Draft Standards
The public hearings are over and the next stage of the development of new
standards begins. This Saturday, November 1st, the Social Studies
Committee will re-assemble to review the pages and pages of public
testimony they have received. The Science Committee will re-assemble on
Saturday, November 8th
The meeting is open to the public. Please come:
8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Department of Education , Conference Center
Roseville, MN
651-582-8734 for directions
Let them know you care about the standards.
See reports and
commentary on the public meetings.
Today's quote is from Claudia Peppey, a Mpls.Teacher:
"As a first grade teacher and a parent I am very disturbed by the
proposed standards. I fail to understand the importance of knowing who
William Bradford and Squanot are for a first grader much less an adult. .
Teaching in a mulicultural environment makes me very aware of how
important it is to include all cultures and traditions in our curriculum.
If I am forced to teach about the pilgrims I will not." (Spelling and
punctuation errors are as written). Well, so much for teaching about
America's heritage, as far as Ms. Peppey is concerned.
When the public spoke out, those independent of the education
establishment, they were appreciative of the knowledge-based standards.
They thanked the committee for focusing on the basic principles upon which
our country is based. The Social Studies standards are not without their
problems. There are very many improvements and modifications that must be
made to the draft standards to make them good. Hopefully, the committees
will make positive changes.
However, the acidity from educators toward our country and toward a
commitment to pass on the principles of liberty to the next generation was
often described by the critics as "biased" and
"conservative." Our hope is that teachers would teach children
that patriotism transcends political labels. Many teachers quietly
disagreed with their vocal anti-American colleagues but were afraid to
speak out publicly.
A few examples of the "vocal bully" comments were:
"I see a clear, strong conservative bias and propagandistic tone
in much of the social studies standard. The multiple references to
patriotism, flags, national anthems and God are the clearest examples. It
is one thing to learn to understand and defend the democratic and
egalitarian values of America, and of many other nations that value
democracy and egalitarianism. It is another thing to teach our children to
mouth platitudes about how great America is. To the degree these values
still live in our country, they owe far more to a humanitarian spirit of
rebellion and dissent than to the dubious virtues of patriotism and love
of God."
"Many of the capitalistic threads in the document are just as
biased."
"It appears that some members of the committee have an agenda to
infuse the new standards with the Core Curriculum. I strongly urge
the committee to reevaluate the history standards and look beyond the Core
Curriculum for identifying history standards. The National History
Standards and the National Social Studies Standards both provide age
appropriate standards which do not support any one curriculum approach
such as the Core Curriculum. These should also be examined in developing
history standards and benchmarks. I am quite troubled that the
standards would only reflect one approach to studying history."
The irony of this is that the National Standards are the highly
politicized curriculum. They are what the Profile of Learning was based
on. They are what the public rejected. In fact, in 1995, the National
History Standards were rejected on a vote of 99-1 on the floor of the U.S.
Senate for presenting a biased, distorted inaccurate view of our country.
Yet these are the same standards that are being used today, with only some
of the examples removed.
Thank you to all who showed up at the public hearings and who submitted
testimony. Stay tuned. The battle is still ahead to determine whether the
Profile of Learning is actually repealed, or whether it will simply be
given a new title. Rest assured, we will let you know.
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