Don’t dictate history curriculum in Iowa

Last week, Republicans who control the Iowa House pushed to passage a bill that would require a detailed and highly prescriptive civics and history curriculum for Iowa’s public schools.

Partisan politicians have no business writing school curriculum. We have education professionals setting curriculum standards, and they don’t need to be managed by politicians seeking to score political points.

The 16-page bill dictates what civics and history lessons must be taught, from elementary school through high school. Although we have no problem with teaching kids about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Emancipation proclamation, there are red flags all over this bill.

Conservatives who declared public school students are victims of “liberal indoctrination” are simply seeking to introduce another form of indoctrination, one that teaches “The United States’ exceptional and praiseworthy history.” It’s language that smacks of propaganda rather than real history.

The bill also directs teaching Iowa kids that “The concept that United States history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.”

In other words, there is one true version of history to be learned. Any historian worth their credentials will disagree. The “factual” brand of history being pushed in the bill is its supporters view of history, soaked in the politics of today.

What’s missing is also telling. Among the famous people with civic virtues students must learn are just two women, Abigail Adams and Susan B. Anthony. Slavery is mentioned, but not the failures of Reconstruction that led to Jim Crow laws and institutionalized discrimination that burdens America to this day. The Vietnam War and Watergate also are left out, as are the violent actions that drove Native Americans from their lands.

The bill also bans the concept of “action civics,” which seeks to help students use their knowledge of government and politics by taking an active role in issues they care about. The bill’s backers apparently don’t like to see kids marching for LGBTQ rights or for laws addressing school shootings.

On top of all that, large portions of this bill have clearly been written by conservative think tanks, not Iowans. Iowa once took pride in its public schools. Now we allow outsiders with political axes to grind to alter how we educate our kids.

We urge the Senate to toss aside this misguided bill and seek ways to provide teachers the resources they need to teach real civics and history. The freedom to teach the truth is one thing that makes American exceptional.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com