RICHMOND, Va. — After months of bitter controversy, the Virginia Department of Education held its final review of the proposed revised Standards of Learning.
Educators have pushed back against those standards, spurring a number of redrafts and countless public comments. For months, many parents, educators, and lawmakers have voiced their concerns, calling previously proposed changes to the history curriculum white-washed and insensitive.
VDOE board members said they honored public comment and made numerous changes to what students will learn in Virginia Public Schools.
“We made changes that restored Asia and Africa to world history in third grade,” said Board Member Anne Holton. “We did yesterday specifically vote to restore Indigenous Peoples Day. We added more robust language about our immigrant communities that are such a vibrant part of our community today.”
Board member Andy Rotherham said the work starts now.
“This is a big shift and we are really going to have to support teachers,” Rotherham said. “The amount of content knowledge here, the number of things we put in that frankly people didn’t encounter in schools themselves. There is just a lot of work here, and that is going to be professional development, tools and training materials.”
Still, Virginia Education Association President James Fedderman said he isn’t pleased with the process.
“There are some significant improvements, but there are still several flaws in this document,” Fedderman said.
He said requirements for students to memorize historical dates, names and places are not history.
“History are the real-life things that happen to people within places that they occupy that change the way we live today,” Fedderman said. “That is history and many of those elements, those were erased.”
A group of Virginia workers and labor union leaders protested against it in Richmond on Wednesday.
The group of union leaders and workers said it had more than 4,000 petitions. They are calling on the state Board of Education to keep labor history in the school curriculum.
The president of Virginia AFL-CIO said the current draft erases the labor movement.
"Labor built this state," said Virginia AFL-CIO President Doris Crouse. "Labor built this country. everything was built on our backs. We'll continue the fight to continue to have it in the history books."
Next month, VDOE board members and staff will start the curriculum framework process for history and social science, followed by the textbook approval process set to begin in November.
Virginia students could start learning the new standards and curriculum as early as the 2024-2025 school year.