Board of Education members question curriculum standards

? Members of the Kansas State Board of Education raised new concerns about curriculum standards for history, government, economics and geography.

At Tuesday’s meeting, two conservatives said they were unhappy with wording in parts of the draft of the new standards.

Conservative Connie Morris said she did not like the wording of a history goal for fifth-graders. The goal states that the student “compares the motives and technology that encouraged European exploration of the Americas.”

Such a sentence does not mention European settlers who came to America for religious freedom, Morris said. It also leaves out the “role of basic Christian principles in the foundation of America,” she said.

Conservative Steve Abrams said he did not like the wording of several goals.

One, a civics-government goal for eighth-graders, aims for the student to recognize “the rights guaranteed, granted and protected by the United States Constitution and amendments including the Bill of Rights.”

Abrams said the Constitution did not give Americans rights; the Constitution’s purpose is to tell the government what it can and can’t do.

“It is the people who are granting rights and authority to the government,” he said.

A motion to adopt the standards failed 3-4.

Board members eventually agreed that any board members who disagreed with the standards should talk privately with the committee that made them.

The committee will bring a final draft of the standards to the board of education’s December meeting.

This summer, conservatives and moderates on the board debated how heavy the emphasis should be on the history of countries other than the United States.

Conservatives wanted to see less emphasis on the histories of other nations and more on the histories of the United States and Kansas, board member John Bacon has said.

Moderate Sue Gamble has said de-emphasizing global developments didn’t “bode well for a broadened education.”

The board voted in August to recommend to the committee language that was a compromise between the two groups.

Also Tuesday, board members heard about a draft of potential new writing standards.

The state Department of Education currently has writing standards only for teachers of fifth, eighth and 11th grades.

A committee has put together potential standards, covering kindergarten through 12th grade, for how teachers teach writing and what writing activities students should do.

Teachers had wanted standards for grades besides fifth, eighth and 11th, and the department has reading standards for each grade, committee members said.

Judy Henry, an eighth-grade teacher on the committee, said she hoped the board would vote on the proposed standards in December.

Department of Education curriculums are reviewed every three to five years.

— Journal-World staff writer Scott Rothschild contributed to this story.