South Dakota’s top education official says the media is misrepresenting changes to draft social studies standards. Meanwhile, some members of a group appointed to work on the standards say they’re still in the dark and upset about the alterations.
Public hearings will begin in a month on the draft social studies content standards for South Dakota Kindergarten through 12 students.
The Department of Education released those standards over a week ago with several changes. The department secretary testified before a legislative committee Wednesday.
Content standard revisions are routine. The last time it was done was in 2015. The state has a working group of experts from across the state revise and rework those standards.
The group of about 40 educators and historians came together and looked at U.S. History and American government, Native American history and tribal government, and South Dakota history and government. Social studies in South Dakota is divided into four main subjects—history, civics, geography and economics.
Standards set the minimum of what the state expects students to get taught. Teachers can go beyond the standards.
For example, the DOE draft standards expect fifth graders to be able to “Identify the basic structure of the government by studying The United States Constitution and explaining why the United States was established as a republic.”
But when the Department of Education released its draft standards, they differed from what the working group submitted to the department.
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Ed secretary: Media reports false
Tiffany Sanderson is the Department of Education secretary. She says recent media reports about the content standards don’t reflect what happened with standards revisions.
“Some of the recent narrative that you heard might make it seem like the department is now proposing or recommending to erase all teaching or learning around Native American history or government,” Sanderson says. “That’s absolutely false.”
Sanderson says the Department of Education did make changes to the work group’s recommendation to “ensure schools have ability to teach about all cultures that make up the fabric of South Dakota”—including Oceti Sakowin people. Oceti Sakowin is a term used to recognize tribal communities within South Dakota.
Sanderson says the DOE’s proposed changes are more inclusive than the ones that were in place in 2015.
“Examples of additional ways that schools could address cultural teaching include our Karen population, the culture of our Hispanic students, our Somali students and our Czech students, just as examples,” Sanderson says. “Of course, there are many, many cultures that make up the South Dakota demographics.”
However, the proposed standards do not mention the Karen community, or Hispanic or Somali or Czech students. Theoretically, teachers can go beyond the content standards and teach about those communities.
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There are some cultural standards, like for fourth graders in state history. The Department of Education’s grade level standard 4.H.6.1 says, “Describe the influences of various cultures on South Dakota Communities.”
What the working group recommended for standard 4.H.6.1 was “Explain how the Oceti Sakowin and Oyate culture and other groups were affected by westward expansion, the creation of the reservation system and the US assimilation policies and programs.”
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Work group member explains process
Paul Harens is a retired teacher from Yankton who served as a high school world history lead during the content standards review.
He says the working group’s draft of content standards allow for the teaching of all cultures that make up South Dakota. But he says the Department of Education revisions shortchange the Native American experience.
“Because they specifically talk about what happened with western expansion and to the Native Americans and other groups. It’s not just Native Americans,” Harens says. “One of the examples which was being used was the expansion of the Germans, the Danes and all those coming in. But there was a greater affect upon the native cultures.”
Harens and others who participated in the working group are upset about the preface the Department of Education added to the content standards, which he says the working group didn’t write. He’s since asked the DOE to remove his name from the draft.
The DOE has not answered questions about who made the content standard changes and why. That’s something Harens and others want to know.
The DOE has said in a written statement that “the department made certain adjustments before the release of the draft to provide greater clarity and focus for educators and the public.
“The draft standards provide a balanced, age-appropriate approach to understanding our nation’s history, government, economy, and geography, including opportunities to teach about the experiences of all peoples,” the statement continues.
Harens says the working group was told on the first day of the eight-day content standards summit that the 2015 social studies curriculum standards were not inclusive enough. He says that included insufficient information on indigenous tribes in South Dakota. He says that’s the reason why every subgroup had at least one standard concerning the Oceti Sakowin Oyate and Native Americans.
“I mean, they took most of them out, of the standards that we created to make it more inclusive,” Harens says. “In fact, there’s very little that talks about specifically the histories of indigenous tribes in South Dakota. In fact, one of the things I know they took out was they were going to have younger students look at a map of South Dakota and identify the reservations. That’s all, and they eliminated that one. I don’t understand.”
That was a geography standard for first graders, which was removed.
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Tribal educator dismayed
Another participant who is concerned about the changes is Sherry Johnson, who is the education director for the Sisseton Wahpeton Tribe.
She says she put herself out there for the state of South Dakota and was apprehensive coming to the work group. But, as the event progressed, Johnson says she grew comfortable being there.
“In answering questions and talking about cultural, racial things, identity, and clarifying some of the things that people have just out of ignorance,” Johnson says. “I was in a real safe place to answer questions truthfully for people. I was really happy about the experience to have history include Native Americans.”
Johnson says it was a positive experience, but when she saw the Department of Education draft she was dismayed.
Johnson says the Department of Education draft content standards read a lot like the 1776 Project, which is a history and civics curriculum created by the Trump Administration.
Governor Kristi Noem has signed something called the 1776 Pledge, which seeks to restore “honest and patriotic education that cultivates in our children a profound love for our country.”
One Republican lawmaker, Rep. Steve Haugaard—former speaker of the House—says it would be wise to reinsert references to Native American culture back into the content standards. He says that would redeem the image of the standards.
The content standards are currently up for public comment, with a first public hearing set for Sept. 20 in Aberdeen.
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