NORFOLK, Va. — Every seven years, Virginia school leaders update the state’s Standards of Learning for history and social studies.
Effectively, a blueprint for how to teach American and international history.
Wednesday, The Virginia Board of Education delayed an initial review of these standards to a later time. Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow said the newly appointed board members needed more time to review the standards, which were last updated in 2015.
The topics themselves aren’t necessarily what could change under these standards, but rather how they’re taught.
School leaders explained Wednesday afternoon that the emphasis moving forward should be based more on establishing deeper connections with local history with broader observations, rather than pure memorization of facts.
“We hear a lot about Martin Luther King Jr. but little about Malcolm X. So, how do we balance that?" Dr. Denelle Wallace-Alexander said, Dean of Norfolk State University's School of Education.
Dr. Wallace said she believes it's a good move that the state board didn't rush through reviewing the Standards of Learning and that some language consistencies within the documents needed to be cleaned up.
The question now is, what's next? Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has publicly stated he's against teaching "divisive concepts" in schools, and started a reporting tip line for people to report whether it's being taught in schools across the Commonwealth.
It elicits questions for educators like Dr. Wallace on whether those beliefs would influence any part of the decision-making process.
Dr. Wallace said teaching history, even if it’s negative, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taught.
“We need to understand that history has dark and ugly parts. How do we teach that? Do we teach that? Do I need to teach a kindergartener that? No, but a high school student needs to know it’s not a fairytale. So, we need to understand what that looks like at each grade level," she said.
The Virginia Board of Education includes five newly-appointed members, appointed by Gov. Youngkin himself, as well as Superintendent Balow.