By Bart Pfankuch, South Dakota News Watch
Educators, historians and some elected officials are urging South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and the state Department of Education to keep politics and personal bias out of the process to develop a new and enhanced civics and history education initiative for public K-12 schools across the state.
In her State of the State speech in January, the governor proposed one-time funding to enhance and expand teaching of civics and history in public schools, and the state Legislature approved her $900,000 request during the spring session.
In response, the state education department has embarked on development of the South Dakota Civics and History Initiative, a two-year, four-pronged plan to create new teaching content, provide new resources and training for teachers, and increase access to civic and historical lessons and experiences for students, especially at the elementary level. When the plan is finalized, use of the program will be optional for school districts.
Noem joined many other state and national leaders who in recent years have raised concerns that the two subjects have been deemphasized in the public school system, or that students have failed to learn basic facts about state history and how government works.
Noem, a conservative Republican, has supported efforts to improve civics education before, but her recent funding allocation and initiative come as she has taken an increasingly strong position on social issues and has sought to raise her profile in the national political arena.
In the months since Noem announced her civics and history proposal, the volatility of proposing a new statewide initiative was made clear as criticism arose on several fronts.
Some lawmakers argued that the state, which historically has left classroom teaching decisions to local school districts, was trying to influence the curriculum.
Some educators have questioned whether the update is needed, arguing that South Dakota teachers are already doing a good job of teaching history and civics.
The governor has added political fuel to the debate by blaming a lack of civics education in part for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In a column she wrote in January, Noem decried the violence but argued that a lack of civics education was “the root cause” of the insurrection, without mentioning the role of Trump and his supporters in the attack. She also referred to the 2020 presidential election as “rigged” and has not backed off that claim when asked to clarify.
Noem has said that her goal for the civics and history initiative is to teach students that the United States is “the most unique nation in the history of the world” and to give all state residents the knowledge needed to “pursue their own American dream.”
At this point, still very early in the initiative process, it is unclear who or what group will have the final say in what the content and new teaching materials will contain. No specific committee or panel has been created to make final calls on teaching materials or new historical resources.
Dave Munson, a former Republican lawmaker and former mayor of Sioux Falls, backed an effort in 2014 to enhance civics education. Munson said that great care must be taken to remove politics or inherent bias of government leaders or individual educators from decisions on teaching materials. The current polarized and highly politicized state of American government may make that more difficult than in the past, Munson said.
“If we’re going to teach it, we have to teach it in an unbiased way, because it’s hard to get the unvarnished version out there,” he said. “You have to be very careful so both sides are brought out, and you’re not trying to shove one version of history down somebody’s mind.”
Regardless of who suggests or proposes funding for a new teaching focus caution is always needed to ensure that truth and a multitude of perspectives form the pillars of any new history-teaching plan, said Molly Rozum, a history professor at the University of South Dakota.
Rozum said those who guide classroom teaching should create content that highlights greater complexity rather than oversimplification of events in the past.
“It’s always an inherent risk, and you don’t want it to be ‘political’ or from a particular perspective, and I would be concerned about that whenever a process like this occurs,” Rozum said. “I think you have to include multiple perspectives on events, look through different eyes, and create a layering of complications and complexities to be truthful about historical events.”
The public should understand that the new civics and history initiative is not trying to create an entirely new curriculum for South Dakota schools, said Jaqueline Sly, a former Republican lawmaker from Rapid City who now chairs the state Board of Education Standards.
Instead, she said the initiative will provide more resources for teachers and make it easier for them to obtain the tools they need to teach history in more vibrant, relevant ways.
“It’s not like throwing out the baby with the bathwater; it’s taking what we have and working to strengthen it and make it better,” Sly said. “We’ll provide them with ways to make history come alive.”
Most educators and historians agree that it is critical that any new teaching resources in South Dakota provide a fair, realistic approach to the experiences of Native Americans, the state’s largest minority group.
State Sen. Troy Heinert, D-Mission, said it is critical that elected officials and politicians stay out of the process of choosing materials for schools or leading the new civics and history initiative.
“Anytime we start down this path, we have to be cautious of who’s bringing it and asking if what they are promoting is accurate,” said Heinert, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe who is minority leader in the Senate. “I know that the governor and Legislature are not supposed to write curriculum; that scares me on the face of it.”
Jace DeCory, a Lakota elder and educator who is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said any committee that determines the content of expanded history teaching in South Dakota must have input from several Native Americans in order to present a full picture of state history.
DeCory, who is a professor emeritus in the American Indian Studies Program at Black Hills State University, said education in Native American history and issues has improved but remains inadequate in South Dakota K-12 schools.
“Some of these kids coming from high schools in South Dakota, a lot of things we talk about in our history, they couldn’t believe and they were like deer in the headlights,” said DeCory, who taught history for more than 30 years at the college level.
DeCory said she is happy that the South Dakota social studies standards include the option for schools to teach the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings and Standards, but hopes the new initiative will enhance teaching even more.
Rhoda Bryan, a history teacher who is the head of the Social Studies Department at Central High School in Rapid City, welcomes a greater focus on those topics.
“I feel like we do a really great job in what we do right now, but as a social studies teacher, if there is more funding or resources or more focus, I’m always going to be a supporter of that,” Bryan said.
A 2016 survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that only 26% of Americans could name the three branches of government. That year, only 23% of eighth graders scored as proficient on the National Assessment of Educational Programs civics exam.
Ben Jones, state historian and director of the State Historical Society who served two years as state secretary of education, said the political climate in the country at any given time is mostly considered by educators to be “noise” that does not play into decisions on revising or creating educational initiatives.
“Nothing will be improved by waiting to do this,” Jones said. “If you look at the national scores for history and civics, they’re nothing to be proud of.”
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