RALEIGH — Late last year, the N.C. Department of Public Instruction released its first draft of revised state standards for elementary and secondary social studies. Concerned North Carolinians identified a number of serious defects throughout the revision, particularly the scant coverage of the American Revolution and the Founding Era.
The North Carolina media establishment ignored these objections for months until Fox News aired a report about the proposal in February. News & Observer editors mocked the Fox News report and concluded that objections were nothing more than “just smoke and noise.” DPI apologists like NC Policy Watch and the North Carolina Association of Educators enthusiastically agreed.
After much controversy and several months of deliberation, DPI recently released a much-improved second draft of the state social studies standards. It is no accident that the second draft includes coverage of the Founding Era three times between the fourth and eighth grade and again in high school.
The revised, second draft sequence would require students in kindergarten through third grade to learn the basic concepts used in the study of history, geography, economics, politics, and government. In fourth grade, students will encounter North Carolina history from the pre-colonial era to Reconstruction (1877). A year later, they will cover United States history during the same period. This is an adequate start.
Similar to the first draft of history standards released earlier this year, the second draft would require students to take world history courses in the sixth and seventh grade. Structurally, the elementary and middle school sequence is somewhat unusual. Two years of world history are sandwiched in between a fifth grade United States history course and an eighth grade North Carolina/United States history course. It is not clear if teachers will be able to integrate the content of the world history and United States history courses.
For the eighth grade social studies requirement, DPI replaced the ill-conceived Global Community course, which would have only covered around forty years of contemporary history, with an integrated North Carolina/United States history course. The integrated course would begin with the Declaration of Independence and end in the early 21st century. This is a welcome change, although it is not without shortcomings.
The eighth grade course integrates the history of the state and nation as mandated by Session Law 2009-236: “An Act Modifying the History and Geography Curricula in the Public Schools of North Carolina.” The law requires this course to have a “diversity” component. To fulfill this requirement, teachers must focus on “racial and ethnic groups that have contributed to the development and diversity of the State and nation.”
The most notable change is the addition of a United States history course at the high school level. The ninth grade social studies course would survey world history from early civilizations to the present, but DPI asks teachers to focus on world history from the 1450s to the present.
This is an immense improvement over the Global Studies course proposed in the first draft. The Global Studies course focused on globalization, human rights, climate change, international organizations, technology, and political, social, and religious changes occurring in the second half of the 20th century. The revised course will expose students to the works of Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Bolivar, Jefferson, Paine, Adam Smith, and other Enlightenment thinkers. Finally, high school students would be required to complete a civics and economics course and a two-year United States history course.
DPI invites feedback on the proposed social studies standards from educators and concerned citizens. Contact the department at 919-807-3450 by Nov. 10.
Dr. Terry Stoops is director of education studies at the John Locke Foundation.