It’s President’s Day, but Kentucky’s kids might not understand

Today is President’s Day. It officially honors George Washington’s birthday but has generally come to be understood to also honor Abraham Lincoln and sometimes even all who have served as presidents of the United States of America.

But, thanks to Kentucky’s current social studies standards a lot of Kentucky’s students might not learn much about many of those presidents.

You see, only two past presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, are ever mentioned in Kentucky’s social studies standards.

Even Abraham Lincoln – who was born in Kentucky, after all – never is mentioned at all.

Ditto for all the rest of the 46 presidents like Teddy Roosevelt, who was considered important enough to appear with Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore, but is totally absent from any listing in the Bluegrass State’s social studies standards.

This is just one more example of the highly deficient character of the Kentucky social studies standards. They need to be seriously improved.

And, there actually is a fairly straightforward way this can happen. The standards are adopted by regulation, 704 KAR 8:060, and that regulation can be recalled by legislators for review at any time, even if the legislature is not in session. If that review leads legislators to vote for a finding of deficiency, then the standards must go back to the Kentucky Department of Education and the state board of education for more work.

If our legislators just do the right thing for our children, maybe Kentucky’s students will learn about more than just two of our nation’s past leaders – including one particularly important gentleman who just happened to be born in our state.