by 4Public Education

A non-partisan coalition of nearly 25 Virginia organizations and community leaders has signed a letter to the Virginia Secretary of Education, Superintendent of Instruction, and members of the Virginia Board of Education (VBOE), calling on the VBOE to implement changes to the state’s History and Social Science Standards and Curriculum that were the result of a two-year development process that included multiple stakeholders and public comment periods and proposed to the Board in August 2022. A revised proposal presented at the VBOE’s November 2022 meeting was developed without any visibility into its development process or participants and included egregious errors and omissions of important historical individuals and events, causing strong public outcry. Neither version was accepted by the VBOE.

This delay has caused the VBOE to miss the deadline for final review of new standards, putting the implementation of the revised standards and curriculum at least several months behind schedule. “It is crushing that at a time when we desperately need leadership to support our students and move Virginia forward, we are fighting instead to prevent our schools from moving backward,” said Holly Hazard, Chair of 4 Public Education.

The August 2022 draft of the standards and curriculum was developed over a two-year period and was based on the work of multiple commissions, working groups, and citizen engagement forums. This process included volunteer subject matter experts, including historians, educators, parents, students, and community members. Two public comment periods, held in early 2020 and early 2021, contributed to the development of the proposal, and a third public comment period was opened after the August 2022 presentation of the document. In contrast, the document presented at the November 2022 meeting was developed in less than three months in an opaque process and by individuals and entities that have not been made public.

The organizations signing the letter are calling on the VBOE to vote to move forward with the review process using the August documents without additional delay and to immediately release the names and amount paid to all advisors, contributing consultants, and others who had a role in the development of the revisions proposed at the November meeting.