Students in Oklahoma may soon be required to learn about “discrepancies” in the 2020 presidential election results in their social studies classes.
Proposed language recently added to the state’s draft social studies standards, which the board of education approved and are now under consideration by the state’s majority-Republican legislature, cites elements of the unproven and discredited claims of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election.
The standard includes “sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends,” among the list of things for students to consider.
The new language, first reported by the nonprofit outlet NonDoc, set off the latest controversy in what has been a contentious revision process.
Previous drafts of the standards have come under fire for frequent mentions of Christianity and what some historians and faith leaders have called an overemphasis on the role of Christian ideals in American history.
This most recent edit, referencing the 2020 election, was added after the latest proposed draft was posted publicly. The education department presented the standards to the board without mentioning the change, the Oklahoma Voice reported.
Independent fact-checking organizations have repeatedly found that there is no evidence of far-reaching, coordinated election interference in the 2020 presidential race. But the proposed standards—drafted under Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, a vocal Trump supporter—set up the presence of election fraud as an unsettled question that merits debate from both sides.
“We want students to think for themselves, not be spoon-fed left wing propaganda,” said Walters in an emailed statement, in response to a request for comment.
“Students deserve to examine every aspect of our elections, including the legitimate concerns raised by millions of Americans in 2020. This standard empowers students to investigate and understand the electoral process. … [W]e believe students should learn to think critically, not be told what to think.”
It’s true that social studies educators shouldn’t prescribe the conclusions that their students reach about the impact of historical events, said Anton Schulzki, the interim executive director of the National Council for the Social Studies, and a former social studies teacher of 41 years. But that’s not what’s at stake here.
The proposed language of these standards is “troubling,” because it lends credence to factually incorrect claims, he said. “We’re presenting both sides of an issue that has been settled.”
The limits of ‘inquiry-based’ instruction
The development of social studies standards has long been an ideological battleground, on which politicians and commentators have fought to enshrine the interpretation of the American story that advances their preferred civic values in the next generation.
Most recently, state revision processes have become entangled with debates over “critical race theory” and state laws targeting discussion of race, gender, and “divisive” issues in the classroom.
But debate over what children learn in history classrooms goes back more than a century. In the 1880s, an organization of federal Army veterans argued that Southern textbooks painted Abraham Lincoln as a villain; in the 1920s, conservative writers criticized lessons that incorporated labor history as un-American.
In recent years, the National Council for the Social Studies—the field’s largest professional organization—has embraced the pedagogical approach of inquiry in history. The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, a guiding document released by NCSS in 2013, asks students to use primary sources to make evidence-based claims about the past.
Walters has adopted this language in his description of the proposed standard, saying that it “empowers students to investigate and understand the electoral process.”
But Schulzki said that asking students to seek evidence of election fraud doesn’t meet the “spirit” of the framework. “The claims about the ‘discrepancies’ in the 2020 elections really only come from one partisan viewpoint,” he said.
That doesn’t mean that teachers couldn’t discuss the claims of election interference in class, said Jim Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association.
“It’s appropriate for teachers to explore why false accusations were made,” he said. “It’s a waste of time for students to explore the accusations themselves as if they were fact.”
The Oklahoma Council for the Social Studies, the state’s branch of the national organization, “has chosen to remain neutral” in the current political climate, said Heather Goodenough, the organization’s president.
“Many of our members have been advised by their districts to refrain from making public comments regarding Ryan Walters,” she wrote in an email.
“The recent announcement concerning the 2020 election came as a surprise,” she continued. “OCSS remains committed to teaching historical facts. While history encompasses diverse perspectives, we rely on primary sources as evidence to support factual accuracy.”
