Revisionist Social Studies

BY STEVE NUZUM

The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.

-James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers” (1961)

In January of 2021, the “President’s Advisory 1776 Commission" published a report aimed at pushing a particular narrative into American social studies and history curricula. Reactionary down to its title, the project was explicitly a reframing of the 1619 Project from the New York Times Magazine, which viewed American history through a lens that foregrounded slavery as a foundational American institution. 

Whatever legitimate debate among historians the 1619 Project might have triggered, at least it seemed intended as a supplemental corrective to a historical narrative in US schools that certainly foregrounds what James Baldwin famously called “a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors” as the foundation of American identity. 

In other words, while few teachers would (hopefully) treat the 1619 Project as a standalone curriculum for US History, it might provide a helpful counterpoint to most state-adopted textbooks, which foreground the achievements of mostly white, mostly male elites. Using materials like the 1619 Project, or Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, might provide an opportunity for students to explore the way perspective impacts the kinds of stories historians tell, the facts they include, the facts they leave out, the sources they trust, and those they ignore. (The reason I list more progressive-leaning texts here is not that US social studies and history courses should be “liberal” or lean “left” but that these texts are an alternative to the functionally conservative-- as in, preserving traditional narratives and values-- structure of many existing history and social studies courses. Students obviously need exposure to ideas across the political spectrum and across the wider spectrum of human experiences.) 

On the other hand, the 1776 Commission Report isn’t really a corrective; it is positioned as a replacement, and one which carries a specific ideological narrative that the authors are willing to bend and abuse history to promote. The second sentence of the report is, “We will—we must—always hold these truths.” That is not an invitation to consider perspectives; it is a command to adopt specific beliefs. And even assuming many of us might hold those beliefs, it seems dangerous to allow the governments to codify them for our students. 

For example, the Report quotes Martin Luther King Jr’s words about the “marvelous new militancy,” but only to criticize later civil rights advocates who supposedly “rejected” King’s desire to work together with white allies. What this framing ignores is King’s long history, across many of his most important writings— notably, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963) and “The Other America” (1967), where he pointedly criticizes allies, including white supporters of early civil rights goals, who deny the realities of oppression or who caution black Americans to wait. (He wrote a book called Why We Can’t Wait in 1964; this criticism was never intended to be subtle.)

The American Historical Association, in a critical 2021 statement, cosigned by 47 historical organizations, framed the 1776 Commission Report in stark terms: “The authors call for a form of government indoctrination of American students, and in the process elevate ignorance about the past to a civic virtue.” 

South Carolina Superintendent Ellen Weaver has recently been on the receiving end of significant praise from the political right for her promotion of what Van Hipp-- former SC GOP Chair and current member of Weaver’s think tank Palmetto Promise-- called, in a recent Newsmax opinion piece,“ customized American Revolution [sic] War curriculum for K-12 students statewide”. 

While teaching the Revolutionary War, and South Carolina’s unique role in it, seems like a worthy endeavor, and while from what I understand the Battlefield Trust is a legitimate educational resource, it’s telling that Hipp is sure in his piece to label Weaver as a “non-woke education chief”. And it’s telling also that self-proclaimed “last secretary of education” Linda McMahon, in her visit to South Carolina, at an event sponsored by organizations including Moms for Liberty, praised Weaver at once for her promotion of the initiative and her leadership. (McMahon goes on to say that history is “not political,” but of course any selection of what to teach is in a sense “political”; if our goal is to teach history to students that is useful to them and to society, the goal should instead be to teach in a way that is not partisan, that does not punish students for their political ideologies-- including students who are “conservative,” “liberal,” or “woke”.) 

Weaver embraces partisan revisionist history.

Weaver recently signed onto the “Phoenix Declaration,” a much more vague but similarly ideologically-motivated manifesto about teaching the “best views” to students so that they can “make them their own”. The Declaration is another project of the Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025. 

Before that, she became one of a small number of states to formally align with the explicitly “conservative” edutainment company PragerU for providing content for social studies and other subjects. In doing so, she made lessons available to teachers and students on the official state Department of Education website which make ahistorical claims-- such as that abolitionist Frederick Douglass didn’t support “radical” movements to promote racial equality-- and promote ideologically biased agendas-- as when Dennis Prager tells students that they cannot believe in morality (such as the idea that “murder is wrong”) without believing in a Judeo-Christian God. (While Weaver has indicated that the latter lesson has been removed from South Carolina’s partnership, as of this writing it is still available on the South Carolina Department of Education website. And its central theme is echoed in the Phoenix Declaration she subsequently signed, which requires that schools include “Western and Judeo-Christian traditions” and the theological understanding “that good and evil exist, and that human beings have the capacity and duty to choose good.”)

Which is all to say that, as South Carolina enters the regular cyclical review period for its state Social Studies standards, citizens should keep a very watchful eye on which moves Weaver’s Department of Education makes next. 

While state law requires that standards undergo a rigorous review process that involve content-matter experts, this process has not always been carried out with transparency, even before Weaver’s tenure. And when Weaver adopted the PragerU materials, she apparently did not consult the State Board of Education.

Given Weaver’s tendency to quietly align herself with overtly and proudly ideologically-biased organizations, anyone who believes we should be making history more authentic, more useful, and more representative of multiple perspectives should be very concerned that Weaver or others may try to subvert the process, if not by explicitly dictating state academic standards, than at least by continuing what she has already done by rejecting materials she doesn’t like-- such as the AP African American Studies course and books identified by Moms for Liberty-- and adopting what she does like-- such as the PragerU standards-- all while mostly avoiding feedback from the public. 

What to watch for

Arguably, Weaver’s main skill in this area is this quiet approach. While many of her positions and actions mirror those of controversial former Oklahoma Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters, Walters has constantly and publicly courted controversy, while Weaver tends to confine her most inflammatory statements to friendly audiences-- such as when she made transphobic comments at the 2023 Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warriors” conference-- and less public events, as when she said, in a meeting with state librarians, “There is no such thing as academic freedom in K12 education.” 

That means it’s often necessary to watch what Weaver’s louder peers have already done to get an idea of where she’s going. 

Ryan Walters-- another Phoenix Declaration signatory-- attempted to force his state to spend millions on “Trump Bibles” for use in public schools and pushed through social studies standards which according to EdWeek, “reference discredited claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, and include dozens of references to Christianity and the Bible,” without going through the required public review process. The state’s supreme court has since blocked Walters’ standards, and his predecessor has canceled the Trump Bibles, but these failures to pass his agenda are arguably tied to his long public flameout and subsequent choice to step down to work for an anti-teacher union organization. 

In Florida, where education officials have also signed onto the Phoenix Declaration, state standards have required teaching the “benefit” of slavery to enslaved people and have required an ideologically-biased treatment of the Red Scare and Joseph McCarthy’s persecution of alleged Communists. 

We should be on the lookout for Weaver, if she does take similar steps, to do so without fanfare, without press conferences, without seeking the spotlight her peers in other states have taken. This means following the social studies standards review process closely, staying aware of what’s happening at State Board meetings (by following organizations like ProTruth South Carolina, Freedom to Read, Families Against Book Bans, and SC-ACLU), and on your local school board. It means rejecting attempts to turn history into a list of beliefs students must adopt (even when we might agree with those beliefs). 

And it means supporting candidates for public office who support intellectual honesty and freedom in our public schools.