RICHMOND, Va. -Two of Governor Glenn Youngkin's (R - Virginia) appointees to the Virginia Board of Education expressed their concerns with the current draft of the revision of the state's History and Social Science standards of learning at a board meeting.
The revision process for the standards began when former Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, was in charge and there were a majority of Democratic appointees on the board.
After Youngkin's election, the new Republican governor appointed a new Superintendent and five new members to the Board of Education.
New member Suparna Dutta shared some of her concerns with the revisions during Wednesday's meeting.
Dutta said she didn't agree with the revisions' focus on "inquiry-based learning."
"Empirical research has shown that minimal guidance is significantly less effective and efficient. Only when learners have a solid base can they learn from experienced-based pedagogy," Dutta said. "To introduce something called inquiry learning at this time of pandemic catastrophic loss is backward in my view."
The History and Social Science Coordinator for the VDOE Office of Humanities, Christonya Brown then asked Dutta to provide the research she quoted, and said the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) advocates for inquiry-based practices.
Dutta replied that she found "stuff on the (NCSS) website disturbing," as well as "divisive and controversial."
"It talks about a narrative through the lens of those who created and continue to benefit from American cultural institutions. It says white, financially secure, Christian, cisgender males. That's one of the views stated on their website," Dutta said. "It says school districts are the most active battlefield in the American culture wars today."
Dutta also said she was concerned with some of the themes and concepts laid out in the revisions. Among the themes that concerned her included: conflict and power relationships, Colonialism, servitude, and racism "rather than traditional American values of individual liberty and economic freedom subject to due process under the law."
Another Youngkin-appointed board member, Bill Hansen, said he thought the board should be focusing on "closing the achievement gap between different student groups versus this process when there is nothing wrong with the current standards."
Hansen cited the large learning loss that occurred during the pandemic statewide, and said the board should "double down on getting our kids back to where we were."
"To me, this isn't worth it," Hansen said.
But Board Chair Dan Gecker, a Northam-appointee, told Hansen the board has a "statutory mandate to review and revise the standards every seven years."
He informed the board that their job at this point was "not to make individual editing changes to the document," and instead they could do that when the final draft was submitted and they could vote on every item that was controversial or any item they wanted to be added.
"For now I'd like to ask the board not to do individual edits and to let the process take place," Gecker said. "I just don't believe the views of History on this board or frankly in the Commonwealth are so different that we can't reach common ground in an amicable way."
Public comment is due by September 25th on the proposed revisions, and community engagement sessions will take place in October and November.
Click here to comment by September 25th: https://doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/history_socialscience/2022/
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