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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Social Studies Standards Debate in SD Enters Home Stretch

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Tuesday, February 28, 2023   

South Dakota's education department is still accepting public comment over proposed changes to social studies standards for public schools. Ahead of a key meeting, educators continue to voice their concerns.

The state Board of Education Standards could take action at its April meeting on the latest content plan for K-12 social studies classes. The road map for updating what is taught for the subject has been rocky after the first plan was scrapped in 2021. Recent tension has largely centered around forcing younger students to focus more on memorization as opposed to developing critical thinking skills.

Kelsey Lovseth, a high school teacher in Brookings, said the plan is not age-appropriate.

"Learning about wars, that will be difficult to explain to second-graders, first-graders," Lovseth pointed out.

Opponents accuse Gov. Kristi Noem's administration of politicizing the process by leaning on out-of-state voices to craft the latest plan, including a private conservative college in Michigan. Those leading the effort defend the criteria, saying it focuses on key content early in a child's education and reintroduces them with greater detail as the student gets older.

Jen Macziewski, an elementary school teacher in Rapid City and regional teacher of the year in 2022, said there is not enough time in a day to carve out everything to ensure younger students would retain the information.

"If we expose them to 113 different topics at first grade," Macziewski explained. "By the time they get them again in third grade or fourth grade they're going to have them either forgotten or confused so badly that it's going to be counterproductive at the fourth- and seventh-grade level."

Groups such as the South Dakota Education Association say the board should seek a compromise by taking elements from the initial plan, including broader input from educators, and combine it with some of the current plan. There are also calls to include input from Native American tribes in South Dakota.

Meanwhile, Lovseth argued sticking with the current plan will only make worse morale issues among teachers.

"It's not that we have to relearn, it's not that we're going to have to do professional development," Lovseth emphasized. "It's that we're going to lose the things that we've found so much joy in and kind of start over at a time when we're dealing with a lot of other issues in public education."

Disclosure: The South Dakota Education Association contributes to our fund for reporting on Education. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


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