Michigan’s New Social Study Standards For K – 12 Schools
One of my listeners who is greatly involved with education here in the state of Michigan called in to discuss Michigan’s new Social Studies standards. Her name is Melanie Kurdys, Melanie has been involved with education here in Michigan starting with the Common Core developments and has gone to many of the State Board meetings and committee hearings concerning not only Common Core but also the discussions around Social Study standards.
Melanie attended the State Board meeting where the Board discussed and approved the new Social Studies standards for Michigan schools. She emailed me after attending that meeting and stated:
Yesterday’s decision by SBE is tragic for Michigan.
Michigan established subject level assessments to ensure students are learning & teachers are teaching. So now, a state assessment on Social Studies will test how well our children are learning to be left-leaning political activists. Clearly, if a school district did not want to teach SS this way, the assessment prevents them from doing so.
This means, all MI public school children will be held accountable to learn:
- they live in a democracy, not a Constitutional Republic
- they have individual rights given to them by government, not inalienable rights they have from their creator
- there is no legitimate connection between Judeo-Christian values and the founding of our country
- The people in the US are different groups with varied interests based on race, religion, sex not that US citizens share a unique vision of governance where All men are created equal
- that good citizenship is modeled by political activism, not informed, hard working adults.
Melanie called into my show a few days after the meeting and you can hear our discussion and concerns about the new Michigan Social Studies standards: