Thread by @bymorganmatzen

The South Dakota Board of Education Standards is meeting today. It's the first of four public hearings it will hold on the proposed social studies standards. Here's the agenda: boardsandcommissions.sd.gov/bcuploads/0919…
And here's where you can follow along with me: sd.net/remote1/

.@ElisaSand_AAN is on the ground there at the meeting in Aberdeen. I'm listening remotely from the Argus office.
Since I wrote my preview on the public comments (article = argusleader.com/story/news/edu…), the BOES has uploaded even more comments it's received since Sept. 9...

There were 72 pages of nearly 500 comments when I last checked. Now there are 350 pages with nearly 709 comments. Read them here: boardsandcommissions.sd.gov/bcuploads/Soci…

Initial public comment time. There's no public comments ~for now~, as there will be a separate public comment time for different standards later.

Public comment will be heard from people in-person, then Zoom, then phone. Each speaker will have up to 4 minutes to testify, with up to 90 minutes for proponents and up to 90 minutes for opponents.
CTE standards are up first.

Onto social studies standards. Sec. Tiffany Sanderson is introducing the discussion.

Sanderson thanks those who served on the workgroup this year, and the parents, educators and citizens who reviewed the standards and shared feedback.

This process typically draws very little interest outside of the education community, Sanderson said.

Standards are highly contextual, Sanderson said, and reinforce students' acquisition of literacy skills.
Ben Jones and Shannon Malone from the DOE will speak next.
Jones says if we keep doing what we're doing, we're not going to improve. (paraphrase)

At DSU, while dean of the college of arts & sciences, some students didn't know the difference between the 3 main branches of government, he said. No longer will teachers wonder what to cover, or students be left frustrated to analyze something of which they know little, he adds.

Jones point to criticism that there's too much memorization or coverage of the ancient world in the younger grades. He says introducing key events early explains things like the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and helps follow the story along chronologically (paraphrase)

Jones says this will also show how exceptional the nation is despite human failings.

Malone says the process utilized to bring the standards before the BOES is not as different as some have suggested, she says. This year's group was provided a draft set of standards to develop their work from and that draft was provided by Hillsdale College in Michigan, she says.

Many schools across the country are using these standards, Malone says. The group edited them with great debates/discussions, she says.

Curriculum is the route that leads to the destination, she says, including textbooks and pacing guides. DOE doesn't mandate curriculum, she says.

Proposed standards don't prohibit critical thinking or require just memorization, Malone says (paraphrase)

PROPONENT TESTIMONY LIST:

Oglesby, chief of policy in Gov. Noem's office, first to speak. She shares her experience attending schools in Maryland. Standards before this committee have the same objectives as her school's standards had, she said.

Dylan Kessler, one of the workgroup members, says the standards are objective and chronological. They're neither liberal nor conservative, they're distinctly South Dakotan, he says, and "nobody forced anything on us." Motive wasn't to cut teachers out but to let parents in, says.

Children need to have a basis in fact before being asked to debate these topics, Kessler says.

Dept. of Tribal Relations Sec. David Flute speaking now. Finds the Native standards well-balanced and honest, he says. The next generation of South Dakotans should learn the history of the tribes, he says.

Rep. Carl Perry, R-Aberdeen, says we can't do things the way we've always done them and expect a different outcome. Change is good, he says, and we're here for the students.

Florence Thompson, president of South Dakota Parents Involved in Education and 40 years experience as a school psychologist, (and a Rapid City school board regular), says the criticism in the newspapers purports that proposed standards are political.

"This is like the pot calling the kettle black," Thompson says. Refers to cultural Marxism and common core as well.

Social studies standards have long been a "target of communism," Thompson says.

The previous attempt at standards revision had to be stopped, calls it CRT, cultural Marxism, hating America, etc. Thompson said.

Chad Bishop, a Sioux Falls school board regular and a parent at All City Elementary, favors the new standards and the more rigorous view of economics and monetary policy, he said.

Lisa Gennaro with Concerned Women for America is speaking now. She says she's a big proponent.

Karen Proctor, a substitute teacher, says the standards are a vast improvement on 2015's standards and most children don't have "any sense of who they are as a human being, or as an American. This curriculum will offer that background."

Sen. Al Novstrup, R-Aberdeen, says he's disappointed that if you ask a high school graduate about Karl Marx, Adam Smith, treaties or boarding school history, that students don't know those things.

Audrey Schuller, a parent from Britton, is a proponent of the standards. Is it too much to ask a first grader to recite the Preamble to the Constitution? she asks. Rote memorization is a natural learning style for younger children when their brains are "more malleable," she says.

Tonchi Weaver, (another Rapid City public meeting regular), here representing SD Citizens for Liberty. She's overjoyed to support the set of standards that's being presented, she says. Without an article in the local paper, she would not have driven down from Rapid City, she says

Weaver calls the $200K contract with facilitator William Morrisey a "bargain" as the state spends millions on education in its budget each year.

Elaine Simons, a parent and board member from Wall, says the standards are "wonderful." As she reads through the standards, it's evident this is nothing new, she says.

Marguerite McPhillips is not here.

Linda Schauer, state director of Concerned Women for America, up next.

Rather than ignoring the nation's faults and failings, the standards expose them with the intent not to repeat these shortcomings, Schauer says.

Americans today are "constitutionally illiterate" and most can't name the 3 branches of government, Schauer says.

(People seem to be referencing a 2021 Constitution Day Civics Survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center when they bring up the three branches thing)
annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/political-comm…

Fred Osborn, director of the Office of Indian Education and a workgroup member, says the OIE presented standards related to Oceti Sakowin history and culture, and the workgroup ensured their place in the standards. They are based in historical accuracy, he says.

Zoom proponent time. Rep. Sue Peterson, R-Sioux Falls, served on last year's workgroup which was "facilitated by a hard-left, activist consultant." She resigned from the committee last year because of this. The 2022 proposed standards are substantial and straightforward, she says

.@SDEAEducators is "all in" for CRT, Black Lives Matter, etc. Questions if they are "your constituents." "No, they're not, they're lobbyists," Peterson says. Also says ASBSD and SASD aren't constituents. (paraphrase)

(Associated School Boards of South Dakota and School Administrators of South Dakota)

Kevin Krahenbuhl speaks as a proponent next, pointing to structural change of standards and cognitive appropriateness (paraphrase)

Note: Mr. Krahenbuhl is a program director for assessment, learning & school improvement at Middle Tennessee State University. Cognitive readiness is not determined by age, but what they bring to the table, he says.

Chris Hood speaking now. He's encouraged to see teaching on the Bill of Rights, Constitution, impact of Jesus & Marxism. The Trail of Tears and 1838 Cherokee removal involves him and his Cherokee ancestry on a personal level. His great-grandma escaped the ToT by escaping to trees

Amy Bruner, a familiar face from Sioux Falls school board meetings, gives her perspective as a mom of children ages 9-16. She questions what has happened from the time she took social studies and history to today.

Bruner said she rejects the premise that the standards are "just too hard." Kids are capable of this level of rigor, she says.

Rapid City school board member Kate Thomas was signed up to speak but is not logged into Zoom.

John Mollison up now.

Mollison, an artist, writer and filmmaker wants to see some things revised but is a proponent, he says. Civics and social studies now in rightful spotlight, he says.

Heather Fields, a parent in Rapid City, says she and her husband moved across the US to SD this last year after their school board "became more liberal."
Fields says she supports the new standards because they will be a safeguard against ideologies that paint the nation as bad.

Joy Pullmann, executive editor at the Federalist and a Hillsdale College alumna, says the standards will help young people grow in knowledge, purpose and service for the rest of their lives.

14 minutes-ish left in proponent testimony time.
Ellen Kowalchuk was signed up to speak but isn't on Zoom. Neither is Breeauna Sagdal.

There's no proponent testimony on the phone. Sagdal is on Zoom now.
Sagdal, a mother and "journalist by trade," (LinkedIn says she's a journalist at Influence Watch and editor of Dakota Leader, haven't heard of either of those outlets until now), is a proponent.

Other proponents in the room can speak now. First is Terri Rohl (sp?) a parent in the state. If the biggest complaint is that it's too challenging for children, aren't we telling our children they're too stupid? she asks.

Six minutes left for proponents. One unregistered person could speak, someone says. No one else gets up in the room. Proponent testimony now closed. Someone suggests a 15 minute break and resuming with opponents after that.

We're back now. Opponent testimony will start.
OPPONENT TESTIMONY:

Natasha Phillips, a teacher from Yankton, is disappointed in the standards. She has a hard time believing that this came from South Dakotans, as first graders don't need to know about Peloponnesian/Persian wars, triumvirates etc. Questions workgroup's child development background

Korey Erickson, a librarian/teacher from Sioux Falls, says proposed standards look at history and events from a point of view that just looks at recitation and memorization. Standards have no questioning, research or rigor, he says.

Andrea Stanosheck, a teacher from Yankton who was on the 2021 social studies workgroup, notes last year's group represented all grades while this year only 3 teachers certified in SD were on the group.

Does South Dakota value its teachers' expertise? Show that by voting no on the proposed standards, she says, and reconsider the 2021 proposed standards.

Kathleen Cook, a high school history teacher from Harrisburg, says these aren't standards but are a set of prescriptive curriculum. Standards should be goals for instruction, not specific content and process, Cook says.

Sherry Johnson, education director for the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate with decades of experience as superintendent and middle school teacher, says there hasn't been any arrangement for tribal consultation, violating Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Standards aren't vertically or horizontally aligned, and some are repeated over grades. Some standards vague, Johnson says.

Standards should be free of religious indoctrination, Johnson says. $800,000 isn't enough to provide everything we need for this, she says. This isn't appropriate for the children of South Dakota, she adds.

Samantha Walder, principal at Tea Area Legacy Elementary, said she was mailed a large package from Morrisey. Educators' concerns were dismissed by the chair in this workgroup, she said, and were told this is the classical form of education that the governor wants.

Curriculum adoptions like this should be done at the local level, Walder said. The commission never voted on any of the final documents being circulated by the DOE, she says.

Walder asks the BOES to adopt standards from 2021 or yield to legislative intervention (paraphrase), she says.

Rob Monson, executive director of SASD, says neither the process nor products align with beliefs to let people choose (paraphrase)
Educators are docile and caring at heart who want to share love & compassion; but national political agenda forcing educators to react, she says.

Asks other opponents to stand behind him in the room. Why did the process have to change? Monson asks. This was run by someone with no ties to SD, he says. Why wouldn't we have used our traditional process? he asks.

Should we as South Dakotans be OK with an out-of-state organization choosing the standards we teach? Monson questions. Our openness during the pandemic/our economy is thanks to teachers, and now you're thanking them with these standards that they had no part in creating, he says.

Amy Long, a Yankton middle school social studies teacher who served on the 2015 standards revision committee, is confused by recurring use of the phrase "true history." Has never taught anything other than "true history," she says.

SD prides itself on local control, but concerned that change in scope and sequence of standards took place without input of those who will teach them, Long says.

Leasa Woodward, in her 25th year of teaching social studies in SD, questions why the fundamental change has to be made. Where is the data to show that what we're doing isn't effective? Woodward asks.

(Leasa teaches in Yankton)
She hasn't heard one teacher in favor of this, she adds; consider that pretty heavily. We want to pretend this isn't political, but it seems it has been, with some of the statements that have been made, she says.

Nikki Townsend, representing the Harrisburg school district and Harrisburg education association, opposes the standards. The standards aren't developmentally appropriate and encourage students to memorize documents rather than immerse themselves in history, she says.

Memorization isn't deep understanding, Townsend says. Teachers won't have time to go beyond covering kindergarten standards as they're written, she said.

Townsend is comparing the social studies workgroup to other recent workgroups for math, ELA, etc. who had more representation from teachers certified in SD on those subjects than the current workgroup.

Tonya Rasmussen, representing school administrators and herself as a grandparent, says there's been no transparency in this process and little to no representation of practicing South Dakota teachers.

Morrisey came to SD one day to facilitate this process and email a set of written standards, Rasmussen argues.

Cherie Farlee, education director of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, says the DOE hasn't reached out to tribal govt to consult on the standards. CRST supported the 2021 workgroup's standards; the 2022 draft "paints an inaccurate portrait of Indigenous people," she says.

Farlee calls this institutional racism and a Native Holocaust (paraphrase); CRST wants the state to record the tribe's strong opposition to the standards, want more accurate accounting of Indigenous history, she says.

Ione Klinger is opposed to the standards. As a retired South Dakota educator, she said she knows prior knowledge is important in learning. What's age appropriate for the youngest age is hands-on, and linking new information to what they already know.

Kerry Konda, a 15-year high school U.S. govt teacher, points to 185 learning objectives in civics (?) and agrees they are all great readings, but in his classroom in block scheduling, that's a new document every 1-3 days. Some take 13-18 minutes to read, without the time teaching

There's too much material to be taught, and we should be realistic, Konda says. Students will feel overwhelmed with this, he says. Some of this should be optional and/or on a college, AP level, he says. Reading 27 documents will not make a student want to learn how govt works.

Teachers will feel the chilling effects of not discussing current events or Supreme Court cases, for example, Konda says. Discussing party platforms will make students want to come to class and debate, he says (paraphrase)

Some students have held school board candidate debates, emailed county commissioners, legislators etc. Konda says.

Deb DeBates (fun name!), a retired teacher, points to concerns with developmental appropriateness. In second grade, no chant or song will help students learn about High/Middle Ages, she said. This will limit time for reading, math etc.

Points to teacher shortage; this is another factor making teachers leave our state and keeping young people from becoming teachers, DeBates says.

Tamra Huffman, a Harrisburg middle school history teacher, says this adds too many anchor standards and it's unrealistic to cover all of that in a school year, she says. Points to Bloom's Taxonomy of critical thinking.

Not every South Dakota teacher is a Christian or a religious scholar, Huffman says. The standards seem to think that social studies is about names and dates, not analysis, she says.

Cante Heart, a concerned parent of 3 daughters, opposes the current standards. The impact, she disagrees with. She's a proud Sicangu Lakota in Rapid City and as a South Dakotan and parent, she wants children to be independent and think for themselves.

These standards won't prepare our children to be critical thinkers, Cante says, and some of them contain divisive concepts under Gov. Noem's recent executive order.

Kelsey Lovseth, who has taught U.S. govt since 2007 and was part of the 2021 workgroup, points to survey asking for input on revising the standards the group reviewed in 2021 on the 2015 standards.

Incorporation of more diverse perspectives, including Native Americans; fewer, more concise standards; balance of content and skills; current events and media literacy; etc. were all part of responses on that survey, Lovseth says.

The will of South Dakota people has been ignored, Lovseth says.

Kurt Drube, a retired middle school geography teacher from Aberdeen, says his jaw hit the floor when he reviewed these standards because geography wasn't "everywhere in the standards."

It is important to locate places on maps and spell their names correctly, but it's not all that is geography, Drube says. Fears group not rooted in best practices & is political, he says (paraphrase)

Tim Graf, superintendent of the Harrisburg School District, speaks representing himself. He has a lot of "Why" questions. Why were educators replaced with politicians and political appointees? Ask some of these questions as you move forward, Graf says.

When will we as a state finally begin to value and respect the work of our educators in this great state? Graf asks.

Michael Kroll, superintendent of Warner School District, says if you told him 20 years ago we'd have this many people excited about social studies standards, he'd be surprised.

Kroll says we're placing a lot of stress on our elementary educators with these standards. As we look at teacher shortage across the state, he wonders the impact this will have, Kroll says.
"You haven't been doing a good enough job, so you have to learn all of this now," he says.

16 minutes left for opponents.
Sarah White representing herself and her 4 sons. Member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. (also director of South Dakota Education Equity Coalition)

White says this process shows how systemically disenfranchised our tribal leaders are & violated federal mandate for tribal consultation to occur, she says.
Education on Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings is limited, leaving OSEUs as a siloed elective at best.

Roquel Gourneau, an education specialist for the Lower Brule and Crow Creek Sioux Tribes, points to the lack of tribal consultation and removal of references of Indigenous Native Americans.

The original workgroup's hard work should be recognized and their work put forth, Gourneau says (paraphrase)
"It's our Indigenous people, after all, who put the 'Dakota' in 'South Dakota,'" she says.

Eric Knight, superintendent in Centerville, says he opposes the standards from his teachers' perspectives. Proposed standards aren't too hard or rigorous, they're just developmentally inappropriate, he says.

Bloom's Taxonomy wasn't taken into consideration with these standards, Knight says.

7 minutes left for opponents.
Melissa Zastrow, parent and educator, says to consider whether or not we've done our best work with these standards.

Michelle Vande Weerd, a lifelong educator, says the proposed standards lack the process that she always felt so good about.

Jeff Danielson, superintendent of Watertown School District, talks time and money. Concerns include the time for teachers to implement the standards, the volume of standards with the time it will take away from other subjects, and the money it will cost local districts, he said.

Summary of public comments first.
Shannon Malone with the DOE says as of Sept. 16, 707 comments have been submitted online, by email and standard mail to the DOE. There are 67 proponent comments, 615 opponent comments and 25 neutral comments.

It's clear there's a strong interest in ensuring SD students have opportunity to learn SD and Native American history, civics, government, economics etc.
Public comments are open through March 2023, she adds.

Jon Schaff, NSU professor of government and a workgroup member, now speaking untimed as a rebuttal.
Schaff says teachers WERE included on the commission and the public comment time allows every teacher in SD to speak on the standards, he says.

Osborn did bring forward standards and they were discussed, Schaff said. He rebuts that anyone on the committee was silenced, and said conversation was respectful.
We believe what can be expected from students is greater than what we give students credit for, Schaff said.

Opponents argued that young students can't learn about these subjects, but all over the country, they are, Schaff said. You can teach ancient history to young learners, he said.

The standards aren't written in jargon language, Schaff notes.
We all want students to think deeply about what's covered in the standards. It's AT LEAST names and dates, Schaff emphasizes. Memorizing the Pledge is the first step to higher order thinking, he says.

You can't understand what the Pledge means if you don't know what it says, he adds.
Standards are written in a common-sense language that the average person can understand, he said.

How can you understand Western civilization without an understanding of Christianity? Schaff asks.

Schaff points to 30 references of Oceti Sakowin, 60 references of Native Americans, and discussion of internment, slavery, suffrage, etc.

Schaff also points to the National Education Association's funding and stances on same-sex marriage, abortion, etc. Questions if it is an educational group or lobbying group.

Proposed standards should relieve "widespread cultural illiteracy," Schaff said.
Notes nothing took up as much time of the committee as telling the Oceti Sakowin story, he says (paraphrase)
Schools are a microcosm of who we are and who we want to be, he says

Schaff urges the BOES to adopt the proposed standards.
He's done speaking now.
Someone questions why the rebuttal got 20ish minutes when other speakers were limited to 4 minutes.
Rebuttal is untimed, someone from the board responds.
Now time for board questions.

In the past, different commissions and committees have brought changes to the next public hearing, Sanderson says.

Motion to adjourn the meeting.

Next BOES meeting is set for Nov. 21 at 9 a.m. at Carnegie Town Hall in Sioux Falls. See y'all there.