The Dakota Scout

The Dakota Scout

Share this post

The Dakota Scout
The Dakota Scout
New social studies standards deserve your support
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
Viewpoints

New social studies standards deserve your support

Guest column by David Griffith

Dec 23, 2022
∙ Paid
8

Share this post

The Dakota Scout
The Dakota Scout
New social studies standards deserve your support
Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More
9
Share

As someone who spent the better part of a year orchestrating a bipartisan effort to assess the quality of every state’s civics and U.S. history standards, I urge South Dakotans to support the  proposed rewrite of the Mt. Rushmore State’s mediocre old social studies standards.

The draft standards, which the South Dakota Department of Education released earlier this fall, have many strengths, nearly all of which are easier to appreciate if you’ve spent a lot of time reading bad standards.

First, the revision is unusually rich in specific and worthy content – a minor miracle given that almost any specificity in social studies risks controversy in today’s polarized environment. (Why Jefferson but not Madison? Why Martin Luther King but not Malcom X? Why the Khmer Rouge but not the Armenian Genocide?)

 VIEWPOINTS: The South Dakota Legislative Circus: Institutionalists versus performers

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to The Dakota Scout to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 The Dakota Scout
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share

Copy link
Facebook
Email
Notes
More