Here is a video clip from the Kentucky Board of Education’s October 2, 2018 meeting where former Kentucky History Teacher of the Year Donnie Wilkerson briefly outlines why he opposes the current draft of the social studies standards.

Donnie talks pretty quickly in this because so much is wrong and he only is being allowed a few minutes to make his case. Never the less, I think you’ll get the idea that a HUGE amount of material is being left out of this new, and vacuous, attempt to define what social studies in Kentucky will include.

Keep in mind that the social studies need to cover a huge range of important topics. A very partial listing from the National Council for the Social Studies includes: anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, government, civics and sociology.

To be honest, Wilkerson could be given an hour to discuss problems with the draft and still not touch on everything that is missing. The draft needs to be scrapped, and as Wilkerson suggests, we should take a new look at highly regarded standards from states like Massachusetts and Indiana and adopt those rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, and things like American History, at the same time.