PRESS RELEASE — Extract – FRANKFORT, Ky. (Dec. 6, 2021) – Gov. Andy Beshear has directed that flags at all state office buildings be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, in observance of National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day on this 80th anniversary of the attack.

This is a highly fitting remembrance, but will Kentucky’s school children have any idea what this is all about since Kentucky’s current, very vacuous social studies standards never mention Pearl Harbor?

Even Mississippi ensures its students learn about Pearl Harbor, specifying that requirement on Page 70 of its current social studies standards document. Not only is the beginning event of the United States’ formal entry into World War II ignored, but the key ending event – the dropping of the atomic bomb – is also unmentioned in Kentucky’s standards. Mississippi does better for that, too (find the atomic bomb mentioned on Page 70 of the Mississippi standards).

The failings in Kentucky’s social studies standards run much deeper than ignoring key events in World War II. You won’t find Abraham Lincoln’s name ever mentioned in Kentucky’s standards, either, which is really reprehensible when you realize Lincoln was born here.

Yes, Mississippi even specifically mentions Lincoln, too. See Page 94 in that state’s standards.

So, when a youngster asks why the flags are at half mast, be prepared to tell them a lot more about Pearl Harbor than you might think should be necessary, because there’s no guarantee Kentucky’s school system has told them anything about the “Date which will live in infamy.”