Study: Iowa social studies’ students shortchanged

(The Center Square) – New national research finds that Iowa’s standards for civics and history are badly lacking in the pursuit of high-quality education.

Ohio-based Fordham Institute conducted reviews “by a bipartisan team of veteran educators and subject-matter experts with deep knowledge of civics and U.S. History,” according to their website.

Only 15 jurisdictions garnered “good” or “exemplary” ratings in each subject. Among 19 other states, Iowa fell into the bottom tier of “inadequate”—in both subjects.

The only neighboring state to even gain a “good” ranking was Minnesota; no adjacent states were “exemplary.”

John Dickinson, Policy Director at the Des Moines-based Tax Education Foundation, has taught history at private schools and colleges since 2006. He largely agrees with the report, and finds the state standards vague. “For a long time, we’ve had a crisis in civic education. It needs to be addressed. But there’s not an easy solution to this,” he told The Center Square via email.

And the importance of history is widespread enough to be promoted by an Irish statesman (Edmund Burke), a Harvard philosopher (George Santayana), and Young Adult fiction writer (Lemony Snicket). In different ways, they all said that those who do not know the lessons of history are destined to repeat them.

The unwanted fate of historical ignorance seems looming as the report harshly describes Iowa’s U.S. History standards for both K-8 and high school. That earns the state an F.

Why the flunk?

On the primary level, the standards have “no discernible U.S. History content in grades K–5.” For grades 6 to 8: “Nothing remotely approaching a substantive outline is offered.” Moreover, there is no discussion of key topics: the origins and structure of U.S. government or innovation and entrepreneurship in America.

Part of the answer, Hendrickson says, is for families to help instill an early love of history either in school or at home, “Teach kids when they’re young. That’s how I got hooked on history. My mom gave me a child’s history of Lincoln. I was sold.”

The analysis calls the Iowa secondary standards for history “scattered thematic points and a handful of decontextualized specifics offered as seemingly random examples.” There is “no meaningful outlining or even a clearly defined course scope.”

Iowa fared only slightly better on civics education, being docked with a D. Fordham Institute’s critique offers this overview, “Iowa’s civic standards are written so broadly that it’s often impossible to say what students are meant to learn, and what elementary civics content does exist is unambitious.”

The analysis does praise the state’s standards in civics for two aspects. First, “Iowa pays careful attention to citizenship skills and dispositions from Kindergarten through fifth grade.” Second, the state does pointedly promote “the development of critical thinking skills” from sixth grade through 12th grade.

Heather Doe, communications director for the Department of Education, said the department revised all academic standards in 2015 to meet the local wishes of school districts.

Doe said in an email response to The Center Square, “We have social studies standards that reflect Iowa’s values and needs, which prioritizes teaching our students how to be critical thinkers about the information they encounter, as opposed to memorization of a list of facts.”

Doe did not address any of the specifics of the Fordham academic assay.

Hendrickson says the bottom line is for all Iowa citizens to do their best to be informed on civics and history. That can take place, he suggests, regardless of poor state standards. One way is to read a solid U.S. history book such as the 2019 “Land of Hope: An Introduction to the Great American Story” written by a noted historian.

He suggests doing what his family did for him. “My grandparents would teach my brother and me about history and take us to the Fourth of July events,” he said.

Plus, he says, the holiday is a good time to read or reread “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” by the slave-turned-statesman Frederick Douglass. The speech neither downplays the horrors of slavery nor the merits of American principles.

Perhaps Lemony Snicket should have the next-to-last word, “Those unable to catalog the past are doomed to repeat it.”

Two of the Fordham report’s authors echo that sentiment in an article on Fordham’s website, “For the sake of our children’s education (and any number of other reasons), we need a more thoughtful and balanced starting point for conversations about such matters — one that leaves space for nuance, mutual understanding, and hope for the future.”

They conclude, “Our union is not perfect, but will become more so if its citizens understand, value, and engage productively with the constitutional democracy in which we all live.”

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