Iowa politicians are still trying to teach history to your children

(Photo illustration via Getty Images)

Republicans in the Iowa Legislature are determined to meddle in your kid’s classroom.

The House and Senate passed a bill last week directing the state Department of Education to develop revised standards for the teaching of social studies in Iowa schools. But rather than allow the professionals to do the work unfettered by political influence, Republican lawmakers had to put their thumb on the scale.

What happened last week is Round Two of a fight that began earlier this session.

In February, House Republicans passed a 17-page bill with an extensive list of readings and concepts that schools would be required to teach kids. Critics, including me, pointed out the list was largely copied from a rightwing education group, and it ignored the parts of U.S. history that didn’t conform to its conservative view. Professional educators also noted the readings were too complicated for many young students and left little room for other topics, like geography and sociology.

The bill didn’t survive the funnel deadline, but Republican lawmakers resurrected a scaled down measure and passed it over the objections of Democrats last week.

I fully expect the governor will sign it.

Thankfully, the new legislation is an abbreviated version of the House’s behemoth. And instead of substituting the judgment of politicians over educators, like the earlier House bill tried to do, this measure requires that the new standards be developed by the education department and presented to the State Board of Education by the end of 2025.

I suggested earlier this year that going through the state board was preferrable to just letting politicians have free rein, so in some respects this is an improvement.

Still, Republican lawmakers couldn’t resist trying to steer the process in their direction by establishing several paragraphs of “minimum” standards that must be included.

Democrats claimed that in these minimum standards, there is too much emphasis on western civilization and white culture, especially for a country that is a melting pot of people from all over the world. Republicans rejected that idea and said the emphasis on western civilization is proper because, in the words of one senator, this is “our heritage.”

To be sure, there are worthwhile readings and topics in this bill, but as you can see by the vote, it was politically divisive.

I was especially struck by one glaring omission among the minimum standards set out in the bill.

Nowhere can you find the word “slavery.”

A Republican senator who recognized the subjugation of Black people in U.S. history during floor debate, said slavery was listed in the previous House bill but acknowledged in the new measure, that it “did not make the cut.”

Still, he offered assurances the education department would certainly include it.

Failing to specifically mention slavery among the “minimum” requirements for the teaching of U.S. history is one hell of an oversight.

Republicans assured us the bill does require the teaching of “important events” in U.S. history. And it requires teaching the Emancipation Proclamation and the amendments to the Constitution, which would encompass the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery. But for Republicans to include the history of slavery in this country only by inference — and then specifically refer to only the documents seeking to end it — is a telling commentary.

Which begs the question: Why try to steer the process in the first place?

Republicans insist that their list is not exclusive. But if lawmakers are going to trust the education department to fill in the gaps they left, why not just get out of the way entirely?

They say it’s because kids aren’t being taught the history they believe should be taught. But I trust Iowa teachers to make these decisions, not politicians. I believe Iowans do too, a majority of whom say the values of their public schools match their own.

As this goes forward, I hope the professionals in the department and members of the state board steer clear of the legislative meddling as much as they can and, with input from the public, develop standards that are politically neutral, inclusive of our entire population, relevant to the world we live in today and that excite kids about history. The last is no small task in itself. Experts have struggled for years to get kids interested in history and civics.

Unfortunately, the insistence on passing this legislation only reiterates what we already know about the state of education in Iowa today, and it is this: Republican legislators are determined to push their political opinions into your kid’s school. And they will not be deterred; that is, until voters stand up and say, “enough.”

This column was originally published by Ed Tibbetts’ Along the Mississippi newsletter on Substack. It is republished here through the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.

Editor’s note: Please consider subscribing to the collaborative and the authors’ blogs to support their work.

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