Fact Sheet Sent to Virginia Legislators November 11, 2022, from the Glenn Youngkin

Administration

November 2022 History and Social Science Standards

 Key Takeaways:
• Content: The November 2022 revised standards address the omissions and inadequate
coverage in the August 2022 draft standards of critical content students must know.
 
• Clarity: The August 2022 draft standards, which attempted to combine both the
standards and the curriculum frameworks and instructional guidance into a single
document, made the standards exceedingly difficult to identify and understand. The
November 2022 revised standards make clear the content students must know and the
skills students must have.
 
• Usability: The August 2022 draft standards were unnecessarily difficult for educators
to understand and implement; they were also inaccessible for parents and families. The
November 2022 revised standards are easily understood and implemented through a
logical progression with a recommended grade level sequence.
 
Background:
• The Virginia Board of Education (Board) is required to regularly review and, if
necessary, revise the K-12 Standards of Learning in all subject matter areas at least once
every seven years. K-12 standards are statements that express what students should know
and be able to do at each grade level in each content area.
 
• A timeline for the review and revision of the 2015 standards was approved by the Board
at the end of January 2021. The Board was slated to conduct its first review of proposed
2022 standards at its August 2022 meeting. The August 2022 draft standards document
attempted to combine the standards and curriculum frameworks— which are intended to
provide instructional guidance for educators, including resources and sample student
activities—in a single, 402-page document.
 
o For reference, the 2015 standards totaled 48 pages and the 2016 curriculum
frameworks were 13 documents totaling 708 pages.
 
• The August 2022 draft standards' confusing structure, vague writing, and elusive
content were unnecessarily difficult for educators to understand and implement; they
were also inaccessible for parents and families. Thus, at the August 2022 meeting, the
Board decided that the standards would undergo further development and public
engagement prior to first review by the Board, which included later requests to decouple
the standards from the draft combined document. The separated draft standards and
curriculum framework materials that resulted could not serve as standalone materials and
deficiencies in content, clarity, and usability persisted, as detailed below.
 
• In November 2022, the revised standards were presented to the Board. The November
2022 revised standards reflect the work of Virginians and state and national history
experts since January 2021, including additional input since August 2022. The Board is
 Fact Sheet Sent to Virginia Legislators November 11, 2022, from the Glenn Youngkin
Administration
on track to approve the November 2022 revised standards by February 2023—just one
Board meeting after originally planned. Keeping with the timeline approved by the Board
in January 2021, professional development will begin in summer 2023 and revised
standards will be taught in 2024-2025.
 
The November 2022 revised standards differ from the August 2022 draft standards in the
following ways: Omitted and inadequately thorough content has been addressed by:
• Adding more specific and thorough treatment of the issue of slavery, particularly by
requiring more content in earlier grades. Excerpts include:
 
o “explaining that European countries began sending enslaved Africans to
America as early as the 16th century; describing that the Virginia General
Assembly passed a law in 1705 that established the legality of owning human
beings as property, beginning the practice of inter-generational slavery; and
explaining the connection between the growth of tobacco plantations in Virginia
and the growth in the number of enslaved Blacks.” (Grade Four: Virginia Studies)
 
• Adding more specific and thorough treatment of the issues of Reconstruction and
segregation, particularly by requiring more content in earlier grades. Excerpts include:
 
o “...describing the role of Black politicians during Reconstruction, including Dr.
Daniel M. Norton and Edward David Bland from Virginia; racial segregation, the
rise of “Jim Crow” laws, Black Codes, redlining, and other constraints faced by
African Americans and other people during post-Reconstruction; detailing the rise
of violence and intimidation of Black Americans including lynching and armed
conflict, the formation and actions of hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the
White League, and the Red Shirts; analyzing African American responses to Jim
Crow (e.g. underground cotton markets; formation of the NAACP; strikes,
protests; the work of leaders like Booker T. Washington; W.E.B. DuBois; Mary
White Ovington; Ida B. Wells-Barnett; role of HBCUs; Maggie Walker)...”
(Grade Six: United States History: U.S. History 1865 to the Present)
 
o Including Hiram Revels, who was elected by the Mississippi legislature as a
U.S. Senator in 1871. (Grade Six: United States History: U.S. History 1865 to the
Present)
 
o “describing the role that the “freedmen’s schools” played in the lives of African
Americans in Virginia after the Civil War...” (Grade Four: Virginia Studies)
 
• Adding more clear and thorough treatment of the issue of the Civil Rights Movement,
especially in Virginia. Excerpts include:
 
o “explaining the causes and effects of desegregation and Massive Resistance
(e.g., 1940 Norfolk School Board case, 1951 Farmville protest, the Supreme
Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, 1964 Prince Edward County
Supreme Court case, “Redlining,” the displacement of Virginia families when the
 Fact Sheet Sent to Virginia Legislators November 11, 2022, from the Glenn Youngkin
Administration
Blue Ridge Parkway was built, the effects that the building of interstate highways
had on marginalized communities, and Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court
decision in 1967); and investigating the political, social, or economic effects of
choices made by Virginians during the civil rights era (e.g., Maggie L. Walker,
Oliver W. Hill, Sr., Irene Morgan, Arthur R. Ashe, Barbara Johns, A. Linwood
Holton, Jr., and L. Douglas Wilder).” (Grade Four: Virginia Studies)
 
o “...detailing the key events and change makers of the Civil Rights Movement in
America and Virginia including Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X,
Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, John Lewis, Medgar Evers, Ralph Abernathy,
boycotts, Selma, Massive Resistance...” (Grade Six: United States History: U.S.
History 1865 to the Present)
 
o “evaluating the impact and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., including "A
Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” civil disobedience, the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, “I Have a Dream” speech (comparing to The Gettysburg
Address), and his assassination...” (Grade Eleven: Virginia and United States
History)
 
o “analyzing the international and domestic events, interests, and philosophies
that prompted attacks on civil liberties, including the Palmer Raids, Marcus
Garvey’s “back-to-Africa” movement, the re- emergence of the Ku Klux Klan,
Chicago riot of 1919, Tulsa Race Massacre and the decimation of Black Wall
Street, and immigration quotas and the responses of organizations such as the
American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, and the Anti- Defamation League...” (Grade Eleven: Virginia and
United States History)
 
• Requiring the examination of important Supreme Court cases like Dred Scott v.
Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, Korematsu v. U.S, Loving v. Virginia and more.
 
• Covering substantial elements of Virginia’s history, including Bacon’s Rebellion,
Virginia’s importance as the most populous and wealthiest colony in British North
America, John Randolph and his opposition of a strong federal government
contextualized by slavery, and Virginia’s extraordinary prominence in national
leadership, including eight presidents from Virginia spanning George Washington to
Zachary Taylor.
 
• Further examining the critical role of the Founding Fathers and the principles of liberty
expressed in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the U.S. Constitution,
including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in particular, in the formation of the
United States; inclusion of other important early Americans in earlier grades, such as:
Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin
Franklin.
 
 Fact Sheet Sent to Virginia Legislators November 11, 2022, from the Glenn Youngkin
Administration
• Further explaining the importance of Women’s Suffrage and key events in history that
led to the Nineteenth Amendment, including the role of Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Burns,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, Ida B. Wells, and Sojourner Truth.
 
• Providing more thorough treatment of the Constitution, the branches of government, the
rule of law, how a bill becomes a law, and the role of courts, judges, and juries in K-3.
 
• Examining the influence that the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution
have had on other countries throughout history and how English Common Law and the Magna
Carta affected how the Founders thought about individual liberty and the rule of law.
 
• Providing adequate explanation of the Electoral College and examination of specific
Federalist Papers most essential to understanding the Constitution.
 
• Adding more clear and thorough treatment of the issues of the economic systems and
philosophies. Excerpts include:
 
o “...explaining the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, with an emphasis on the roles played by Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John
Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Vaclev Havel); explaining the factors
that led to the end of the Cold War, the defeat of communism, and the collapse of
the Soviet Union (e.g., the impact of Reagan’s “Tear Down this Wall” speech, the
fall of the Berlin Wall, the effect of pressure both from within Soviet Bloc
countries and outside of them, the failure of the communist economic and
political policy, and glasnost and perestroika)...” (Grade Ten: World History and
Geography: 1500 CE to the Present)
 
o “...identifying modern era genocides including the over 100 million victims of
communist regimes (e.g., Mao’s Cultural revolution, Stalin Regime, Armenia,
Cambodia, Fidel Castro’s Cuba), as well as other modern era genocides (e.g.,
Darfur, Rwanda, China’s minority Uyghur population)...” (Grade Ten: World
History and Geography: 1500 CE to the Present)
 
o “explaining the differences among capitalism, communism, Marxism, socialism,
authoritarianism, and totalitarianism; comparing the characteristics of economies
as described by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek,
Milton Friedman, and Thomas Sowell;...comparing and contrasting capitalism and
socialism as economic systems, including the role of government in each (e.g.,
compare and contrast the Bill of Rights to the Communist
Manifesto);...explaining how competition and free enterprise influence the local,
national, and global economies; and evaluating the effects of the government’s
role in the economy on individual economic freedoms.” (Grade Twelve: Virginia
and United States Government)
 
• Adding more American history content and world history content in grades K-3.
 
 Fact Sheet Sent to Virginia Legislators November 11, 2022, from the Glenn Youngkin
Administration
• Reverting to the 2015 grade eight geography standards because of the deficiency in
content in the August 2022 draft.
 
• Adding a staircase of standards that build students’ understanding of what citizenship is,
detailing its rights and responsibilities.
Vague and unsuitable content has been addressed by:
 
• Revising repetitive and vague skills-based standards, which teachers could interpret in
infinitely various ways, thus not resulting in “a shared knowledge as Virginians and as U.S.
citizens.”