What Happened in Minnesota?

Sara Evans and Lisa Norling

In the past academic year, the K-12 public school system of Minnesota survived an attempted hijacking of the statewide social studies curriculum by an alliance of radically right-wing and evangelical Christian activists who were empowered, startlingly, by the state’s own acting Commissioner of Education. This effort was defeated over the course of several months by a remarkable collaboration between an energized group of K-12 teachers and parents and members of the University of Minnesota’s Department of History. We describe this struggle, which has counterparts in a number of other states, and then assess some of its ramifications both for the place of history in K-12 curricula and for the public relevance of academic history.

The previous Minnesota curricular guidelines, known as the Profile of Learning, had long been justifiably criticized for being lofty in goal but thin in content and cumbersome in execution. In May 2003, the Minnesota Legislature repealed the Profile and directed the Department of Education (DOE) to develop a new set of standards in social studies that would be more precise, more specific, and more focused on factual content. Under the guidance of Commissioner Cheri Yecke, her handpicked “citizens committee” of parents, teachers, school administrators, and political operatives produced a first draft of social studies standards in a very brief time (about three weeks). At the direction of Commissioner Yecke, the new standards covered five content areas: U.S. history, world history, government and citizenship, economics, and geography; other social studies fields were omitted.

The Department of Education (DOE) draft was released in late summer 2003 and precipitated a strong public outburst. In public hearings, radio and TV interviews, and newspaper columns around the state, parents, teachers and educators, and minority leaders (especially Native Americans) expressed powerful opposition to the proposal. Some of the most energetic and concerned opponents formed an alliance titled “Minnesotans Against the Proposed Social Studies Standards” (MAPSSS) and, making extensive use of the Internet, they created a virtual coalition that was grassroots and vibrantly democratic. The processes of committee selection and standards writing had largely escaped the notice of the state’s academic community, but some of the early opposition activists were teachers and administrators with whom we had worked closely in the past. They brought the DOE’s proposed standards forcefully to our attention, demanding that we examine them and drawing us into the public debate.

When we read the DOE proposed standards, we too were shocked by its factual errors, omissions, evident biases, explicit political and cultural agenda, and its general sloppiness, inconsistencies, and incoherence. We were particularly distressed&emdash;and inspired to action&emdash;by the obvious rejection of both the expertise of professional scholars (who were conspicuously excluded from the process) and of several generations worth of scholarship and the knowledge it has produced.

A group of us in the University of Minnesota’s Department of History wrote a thirteen-page analysis focused on the history portions of the draft standards, offering corrections and suggestions for improvement. We called attention to serious omissions, such as the failure to consider the impact of slavery as an institution on American society, the total absence of mention of any rights movement of the twentieth century other than the civil rights movement, and the almost complete omission of Latin America from “world” history. We pointed out multiple examples of misleading or unbalanced details in U.S. history, government, and citizenship: for instance, the persistent conflation of the founding of our nation in 1776 with the framing of our government in 1789, the Mexican-American War as one optional example of westward expansion; and attributing the fall of communism single-handedly to Ronald Reagan. In a curriculum with strong emphasis on individual leaders only three Native Americans were listed: Pocahontas, Squanto, and Sacagawea; and of the twelve women mentioned by name throughout the proposed standards, not one was principally known for her advocacy for women’s rights. Our letter, signed by thirty-two members of the department (out of forty-four faculty, not all in residence at the time), went to the commissioner and also to local newspapers where it immediately became front-page news.

Rather than welcoming our expertise and accepting our offers to help, however, Commissioner Yecke and her allies dismissed our commentary and accused us of promoting a “hate-America agenda.” One colleague who had earlier sent a separate critique to the commissioner was invited to work with the DOE committee and was able to correct many factual errors in the world history standards. But most of our larger concerns went unaddressed. As we observed the work of the DOE subcommittee charged with the task of revision (the meetings of which were open to the public per state law), we began to understand why: we witnessed how a particular ideological agenda was driving the entire process. For example, in a discussion of the kindergarten Civics standard describing the “virtues of good citizens,” the subcommittee decided to omit “sharing and cooperation” because these were too “socialist.” At another meeting, the subcommittee agreed that it would be inappropriate to teach middle school students about the economics of slavery, because the knowledge that human beings were bought and sold as merchandise might “prejudice the students against a free market economy.” In response to a critique that urged the inclusion of protest songs (“We Shall Overcome,” “This Land is Your Land”) as well as patriotic songs (“American the Beautiful,” “God Bless America”), one committee member even suggested that they list the controversial Confederate anthem “Dixie” as the sole example. In response to another critique noting the absence of organized labor from both the U.S. History and the Economics standards, a different committee member sputtered, “unions! Don’t even go there!” In general, they were only interested in those facts and interpretations that reinforced a triumphalist view of the United States and glorified individualism, as they grudgingly corrected some of the most evident errors and addressed a few of the most conspicuous omissions.

The second draft of the standards was released in mid-December 2003 and sent to the legislature. At this point, the battle over the standards became explicitly partisan and political. In the second draft, many of the most egregious factual errors and most glaring omissions were corrected, yet the document was fundamentally similar to the first one in overall intent and, if anything, was even more incoherent and incomplete as the DOE attempted to satisfy some of the complaints with a small fix here and minor patch there. We wrote another critique, this time signed by thirty-nine colleagues, and sent directly to the Minnesota Senate and House leadership. We should note, however, that three of our colleagues signed a letter in support of the DOE and its second draft, along with a number of other professors from several disciplines, representing a number of colleges and universities across the state (most of whom, it turned out, are members of the National Association of Scholars). In the meantime, some of us provided testimony at Senate and House hearings and continued to work in concert with the opposition alliance. The Minnesota House, dominated by Republicans, passed the DOE draft. The Senate Education Committee, with a narrow majority of Democrats, made it clear that it was opposed to the DOE standards but to reject them they would have to have an alternative.

Many groups which had been active in the opposition now stepped up to the plate. Teachers and academics in Economics and Civics created alternate standards in those fields. Several of us in the University’s Department of History wrote standards for the teaching of U.S. and world history, K-12. It was a humbling experience. We came to appreciate the dilemmas of grade school teachers who have to communicate a multidisciplinary curriculum while also teaching basic skills of reading, computation, and self-discipline; and of high school teachers who must cover the history of the world with students who have very little knowledge to build upon and sometimes minimal skills in reading and writing. Fortunately, we did not have to start from scratch; we were able to draw on the excellent work of our colleagues under the leadership of Gary Nash in the creation of national history standards a decade ago. The Minnesota Council for Social Studies (MCSS) endorsed our set of standards, combined with the efforts of the allied groups.

In the end, the Senate adopted the MCSS standards, after which a legislative conference committee hammered out a compromise document that incorporated elements from both the House and the Senate versions. The final compromise document was passed by the legislature on the final day of the session (just hours before the Senate refused to confirm Commissioner Yecke). But, while far better than the DOE’s original proposed set, the standards enacted into Minnesota state law are still highly problematic. Overall, the standards are overwhelmingly long and detailed and still lack any basic statement of guiding principles. The Economics and Civics components are vastly improved, with the deletion of the most blatant right-wing indoctrination and the addition of such basic material as how a legislative bill becomes a law. But the U.S. history and world history are an uneven and confusing forced merger of very different conceptual frameworks. In U.S. history the K-3 grade and the high school standards are primarily the ones we wrote, but the 4-8 grade standards were lifted from the DOE version. And world history is a complete mishmash, a cut-and-paste job with chronological and geographic overlaps and gaps, that is virtually unteachable. Perhaps fortunately, Social Studies is not covered by the No Child Left Behind Act and there is no state test to these standards envisioned (yet), so what actually happens in the classroom is largely up to the teachers.

What happened in Minnesota is not unique. Though we were initially taken by surprise, we later learned that similar battles have developed in other states. From our experience we draw several lessons:

• First, we came to appreciate the importance of a content-rich and thematically coherent curriculum. We understood more deeply than ever before how what is or is not taught in the K-12 years shapes the capacities of students who show up in our own classrooms. As academic historians, then, we have multiple stakes in the outcome of similar debates across the country. If we want our own students to be able to think and analyze and to have a foundation in the discipline on which we can build at the college level, we must offer our expertise to state and local school systems. We can only do so, however, if relations of mutual respect are already in place.
• Second, it is extraordinarily important that academic historians be engaged with K-12 teachers in their communities on a regular basis. Our involvement and our ability to collaborate with a broad coalition rested on several decades of partnership with History Day, faculty development seminars for high school teachers, the Upper Midwest Women’s History Center for Teachers, and most recently a joint initiative with the Minnesota Historical Society and the Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools in a three-year grant funded by the U. S. Department of Education to improve instruction, assessment, and student performance in American history (“Bridge for American History”).
• Third, in the best of all worlds we would have been able to work on the standards in closer collaboration with classroom teachers and other education professionals, including a more receptive DOE. In crisis mode, with pressing deadlines created by the political process, we did the best we could, asking a number of teachers and pedagogy specialists to give us feedback on scope and sequence issues. But an excellent curriculum would require much more time and care to integrate its various parts and calibrate them to the developmental needs and classroom realities of the various grades.
• Finally, this struggle raises disturbing questions about the public relevance of academic history. Over the course of the standards battle in Minnesota, we became aware that this was not quite the same sort of “culture war” as in the recent past, pitting proponents of multiculturalism against those advocating a return to “traditional” history. We learned that our opponents&emdash;many of those appointed to the DOE committees by Commissioner Yecke and those rallying in their support, not only endorsed Western Civilization and E.D. Hirsch’s “Core Knowledge” approach&emdash;which we expected&emdash;but they also advocated a highly specific, fundamentalist Christian version of the past as the unfolding of God’s plan for the world and for the United States as God’s chosen nation. In perhaps the single most revealing example, a seventh grade Government and Citizenship standard required students to “recognize the significance of the Founders’ four references to God in the Declaration of Independence”&emdash;because, as one committee member explained to the others, the Declaration’s description of God as the Supreme Judge, as the Creator of nature’s laws, and the provider of the protection of Divine Providence, outlined the Constitution’s separation of the federal government into the judicial, legislative, and executive branches. In fact, this was not “history” as we recognize and practice it, at all. Terms like the Declaration of Independence’s signers’ “sacred honor,” “self-evident truths,” and “national sovereignty” turned out to have resonances we had not imagined, rendering any discussion of the current state of historical knowledge irrelevant.

We now understand that the conflict in Minnesota over U.S. history, world history, and the historical basis for Government and Citizenship curricular standards pitted myth and icon against history, a very particular sort of belief and faith against academic inquiry. Education and knowledge are, of course, profoundly and inevitably political. In the current political climate, academic historians must be both vigilant and willing to venture outside our normal rounds. If in our work we are expanding the boundaries of knowledge about the past, we not only have a professional interest&emdash;we also have an obligation to see that this knowledge is made available both through schools and in a variety of public venues.

Sara Evans is a Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and is currently on the OAH Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Freedom. Lisa Norling is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.