‘There’s got to be some guardrails.’ KY Senate passes bill regulating history lessons
The Kentucky Senate passed a controversial measure Thursday to require two dozen specific documents to be taught in middle and high school history classes and to set “guardrails” — as one supporter described it — on how teachers are permitted to talk about racism, equality and economic opportunity in classrooms.
Senators split along party lines in their 28-to-8 vote for Senate Bill 138, with Republicans far outnumbering Democrats in support of the “Teaching American Principles Act.” The bill proceeds to the House.
Teachers should be educating their students about history, not indoctrinating them in political ideology, said Sen. Stephen Meredith, speaking in favor of the bill during a lengthy floor debate.
“I’ll give you one more example, of a middle school teacher in my district who says socialism is not all that bad,” said Meredith, R-Leitchfield. “Is that education or is that indoctrination? Tell that to the people in Venezuela.”
“There’s got to be some guardrails where you just can’t say whatever you want to in the classroom,” Meredith said. “You know, the fact that you’ve got a college degree and an education in history does not give you an unfiltered license to say and do whatever you want to do. It’s not about censorship. It’s about teacher responsibility.”
Under the bill, school districts would be required to incorporate 24 specific writings and speeches into history classes at age-appropriate levels.
Some, like the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, already are widely taught. Others are not, such as Ronald Reagan’s 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” which was a televised endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater and a sharp criticism of the Democratic Party and its promotion of social welfare programs for the poor.
The bill’s sponsor, Senate Education Chairman Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, said he chose the materials from a longer list of texts recommended by the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University in Ohio.
The bill also sets standards for how teachers can discuss certain problems, such as racism, which are acknowledged to have existed in America’s past but should not be considered obstacles for anyone today. Instead, the bill promotes an optimistic tone about America’s present-day opportunities.
Teachers should express “the understanding that the institution of slavery and post-Civil War laws enforcing racial segregation and discrimination were contrary to the fundamental American promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, but that defining racial disparities solely on the legacy of this institution is destructive to the unification of our nation,” the bill states.
Teachers also should promote “personal agency and the understanding that, regardless of one’s circumstances, an American has the ability to succeed when he or she is given sufficient opportunity and is committed to seizing that opportunity through hard work, pursuit of education and good citizenship,” the bill states.
Teachers should tell their students that, whatever happened in the past, “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed by other members of the same race or sex,” the bill states.
Several Democratic senators protested that the bill would muzzle Kentucky teachers to stop them from sharing uncomfortable facts with their students, whether that is stories about organized racial violence or the effects of real-estate red-lining that created today’s racially segregated neighborhoods. Discrimination against minorities is not an historic relic that faded away decades ago, the bill’s opponents said.
“This is an effort to appease a segment of our population that is standing up and saying, ‘I don’t want my kids being taught history the way history happened because that makes them feel bad, and I don’t want them to feel bad. And I don’t want them to feel like they have any collective responsibility,’” said Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville.
Should Kentucky schools give equal credence to parents who are Holocaust deniers or white supremacists and who insist that their children’s teachers avoid any lessons that contradict their beliefs, Berg asked.
“Believe me, they are all over this state at this point,” she said. “And this bill appeases them.”
Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, asked why the legislature can’t leave history classes in the hands of history teachers, who have mastered both the subjects and the principles of teaching. But Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, said the legislature provides state money to school districts, so it should get some say in what happens in classrooms.
“This is our business,” McDaniel said. “When we send over 40 percent of the commonwealth’s tax dollars into a system ... we have every right to be involved in these decisions when the citizens so demand it.”
Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass has raised objections to the Senate bill, although he called it “an improvement” over other even more restrictive bills filed this session intended to address so-called Critical Race Theory lessons in schools.
“Our concern remains that the state legislature, through a process that is political by design, is mandating curricular resources,” Glass said after the Senate Education Committee approved it earlier this month.
“This is a significant change from Kentucky’s long-standing tradition of local control over such decisions,” Glass said. “We maintain that these decisions are better left at the school and district level. We will continue to monitor this bill as it moves through the legislative process.”
