States

Ohio Effort to Revise Social Studies Standards Sparks Debate

By Erik W. Robelen — February 11, 2010 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Add Ohio to the list of states currently working to revamp social studies standards, a process that always seems to stir up controversy over what’s taught (and when). I recently wrote about the debate in North Carolina. Texas is also trying to finish up work on revised social studies standards soon.

The Ohio Education Gadfly serves up a detailed analysis of what’s going on in the Buckeye State. It explains that “some opponents to the first draft were concerned with moving early American history from the fifth to the fourth grade, and limiting high school American history to what happened from the 1870s onward.”

Apparently, the Ohio education department is developing a revised draft that will be available in the coming weeks. The state board of education aims to wrap up work on the new standards by June.

The changes at the high school level are actually very similar to what’s contained in the first draft of new social studies standards in North Carolina, where an 11th grade U.S. history course would begin after Reconstruction.

Related Tags:

A version of this news article first appeared in the Curriculum Matters blog.