NC Public High Schools’ American History Curriculum Could Be Gutted, Make Your Voices Heard

RALEIGH – Of the myriad reasons choice is vital to getting the kind of education every child deserves, the tainting and revisionism of American history and the principles of our founding by government-controlled, Leftist-influenced bureaucrats designing a top-down system is one that North Carolina is at risk of learning first hand.

Dr. Terry Stoops, vice president of Research and director of Education Studies at the John Locke Foundation , is drawing attention to an upcoming review and revision of academic standards for the state’s K-12 social studies courses. If we’re not careful, Stoops argues, the revision could result in the North Carolina high school history curriculum lopping off the entire colonial era and requiring students, for instance, to critique the concept of the ‘American Dream.’

From Stoops in the Carolina Journal:

“[…] In the behavioral sciences section, students would be required to “critique the idea of American exceptionalism in terms of its impact on American identity,” a standard that appears to preclude the idea the American experience is inherently special and even worthy of replication and admiration. As historian Allen Guelzo points out, “To discount American exceptionalism is to suggest that the American political order itself was only a figment of one nation’s imagination, at one time.” Guelzo argues that without American exceptionalism, the fight for power, rather than the adherence to principles and ideals, becomes the basis for the American political system. […]”

These are the kind of themes laid out by central education planners trying to juggle new requirements for economics and financial literacy education, by sacrificing time and inserting woke perspectives into American History. Think those political science sections will require reading of Allen Guelzo? Unfortunately, probably not.

But there IS something you can do help make sure American History education in North Carolina’s  public high schools isn’t sacrificed to the Woke Revisionists.

(First, read the rest of Dr. Stoops dive into the worrying framework for revising history curricula; it takes you through section by section of offensive proposed changes dripping with antipathy for the American idea and pessimist resentment of American exceptionalism.)

Then, GO HERE, and fill out the public input survey provided by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.

The NCDPI K-12 Social Studies Team is deeply committed to ensuring that the Revision Process include the consideration of all concerns posed by educators in the schools and local districts. The public feedback surveys opened on December 13, 2019 and will close on January 31, 2020. Each course, kindergarten through high school, has its own individual survey. The high school American History courses are where this particular concern is. DPI says the feedback provided from these surveys will be “used in conjunction with input from teachers and social studies specialists from North Carolina Public Schools to create Draft 2 of the standards.”

Want to help make sure that children going to public high schools in North Carolina, the First in Freedom state, are actually taught the tenets and untainted narratives that made this American Story so great? Fill out the survey, and encourage others that see the perils of raising generations completely detached from American history and those self-evident truths to fill it out as well.