Governor Kristi Noem is raising the issue of civics education before the state legislature again. In her state of the state address last week, the governor asked her administration to create fresh classroom resources for teachers.
The governor says the material should focus on the country’s founding and South Dakota history.
“Through all of this our common mission and key objective needs to be explaining why the United States of America is the most special nation in the history of the world.”
The state’s current social studies standards were adopted in 2015 and reviewed last summer.
Tim Eckart is president of the Sioux Falls Education Association. He explains the state plays a specific role in deciding what students must learn.
“The main content areas are revised every seven years, and then our career and technical education courses are revised every five years. Does that mean they’re changed? Not necessarily. But they’re looked at in case there are items that need to be adopted or changed. And all of that goes through the approval of the state legislature.”
From there, each school district chooses textbooks and other classroom resources. Then, teachers create daily lesson plans to meet state standards.
Eckart says he’s not sure what the Noem administration thinks is missing from the current requirements.
“Is everything included in the state standards that they want in the state standards? That’s why we review the state standards.”
The governor wants 900-thousand dollars for new online resources and teacher training programs. On SDPB’s In the Moment Program, Secretary of Education Tiffany Sanderson says there is currently no cohesive material centered on South Dakota history.
“That 900 thousand dollars will help to develop those kinds of instructional materials so teachers have lesson plans to be able to provide that instruction in the classroom and students have access to things like primary documents, historical photos, and videos or interviews with South Dakota experts that really bring the rich story of our state to life.”
Lawmakers still need to file a bill for the governor’s resource and training proposal.