HOUSE BILL 103
Summary of House Bill 103
SPONSOR(S)
Rep. Don Jones (District 95) Rep. Tracy Richardson (District 83) TARGETS K-12 Education Curriculum standards Honest teaching of history and social studies DESCRIPTION Creates a "Social Studies Standards Task Force" to develop K-12 social studies standards; task force includes appointees of the Governor, the Senate President, and Speaker of the House |
COMMITTEE
House Primary and Secondary Education Committee INTRODUCED March 14, 2023 BILL General Info | As-Written | Analysis TESTIMONY Read | Watch |
What does House Bill 103 do?
HB 103 creates the Ohio Social Studies Standards Task Force to develop new statewide academic standards for K-12 social studies. Standards will be in effect in the 2024-2025 school year. UPDATE: an amendment added to HB 103 on June 13 specifies that the below changes would take place by "six months after the effective date" of when the bill gets passed, rather than on August 15, 2023 as had previously been written in the bill.
TASK FORCE
TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS & ADOPTION
The task force must provide its social studies standards recommendation to the House and Senate Primary and Secondary Education Committees by a deadline of six months after the effective date of the bill
TASK FORCE
- The task force will consist of 9 members, 3 each appointed by the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives
- The task force will develop statewide academic standards in social studies for grades K-12 based on the standards published in American Birthright: The Civics Alliance's Model K-12 Social Studies Standards
- While developing the standards, the task force must allow public comment from the following:
- Parents of K-12 students
- Active Ohio classroom teachers or other educators, staff, and administrators with expertise in the social studies subject area
TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS & ADOPTION
The task force must provide its social studies standards recommendation to the House and Senate Primary and Secondary Education Committees by a deadline of six months after the effective date of the bill
- The General Assembly must approve the recommendations by concurrent resolution
- If the standards are not approved within 2 months of the date they are reported to the General Assembly, the task force must reconvene and report revised standards to the House and Senate Primary and Secondary Education Committees
- The standards will be in effect for 5 school years, beginning in the 2024-2025 school year
- The Ohio Department of Education must revise the social studies model curriculum to reflect the new standards
- The Ohio Department of Education must notify the following schools about the new standards:
- School districts, community schools, STEM schools, and nonpublic schools that are required to administer the American history and American government end-of-course examinations
What is our position on House Bill 103?
OPPOSE
House Bill 103 replaces curriculum created in Ohio, for Ohio’s schools and students, with curriculum created by outside interests to drive an extremist political view.
HB 103 overrides local control, and replaces it with a one-size-fits-all state mandate.
HB 103 goes against current educational standards, and fails to meet the needs of Ohio students.
HB 103 attempts to implement a new curriculum without any financial resources to do so—and replacing major curriculum components creates big costs.
HB 103 will cost more than money: this massive shift in content, standards, and curriculum will create costs in student skill development, too.
HB 103 prioritizes politics over students' futures.
- The American Birthright curriculum has not been adopted by any other state (though it has already been rejected by Colorado).
- A Colorado state board of education member rejected the American Birthright curriculum as harmful to students because the curriculum is public about its opinion that “project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, social emotional learning, current events, civic engagement, and any teaching that promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, or social justice [are] harmful to learning.”
- National conservative think tanks want Ohio students to be the guinea pigs for this untested curriculum and its unknown student outcomes.
HB 103 overrides local control, and replaces it with a one-size-fits-all state mandate.
- Local control means that local districts can be responsive to the particular needs and wants of their communities. That dexterity will be replaced with a single, rigid state mandate.
- This infringement on local control increases the control state-level lawmakers have on our classrooms, thereby decreasing the control that families, educators, school administrators, and local board members have over their own classrooms.
- The implementation of the American Birthright curriculum replaces Ohio’s teacher-created, state-approved curriculum with one that omits historical knowledge and fails to develop fundamental skills in students.
HB 103 goes against current educational standards, and fails to meet the needs of Ohio students.
- The current Ohio Social Studies Model Curriculum contains many skills embedded in our standards that have been the culmination of the work of Ohio scholars, teachers, families, and students.
- The Ohio Department of Education states that “[t]he aim of social studies is the promotion of civic competence – the knowledge, intellectual processes, and democratic dispositions required of students to be active and engaged participants in public life. Although civic competence is not the only responsibility of social studies nor is it exclusive to the field, it is more central to social studies than any other subject area in schools. Civic competence rests on a commitment to democratic values, and requires the ability to use knowledge about one's community, nation, and the world; apply inquiry processes; and employ skills of data collection and analysis, collaboration, decision-making, and problem-solving.” The American Birthright curriculum does not make these same commitments, and does not meet Ohio student needs.
- The political motive driving the American Birthright curriculum is clear in its use of outdated language, approach to historical events, and its exclusionary lack of context and diverse primary sources. State and national experts in social studies agree: this curriculum is explicitly not recommended by experts in social studies content areas.
HB 103 attempts to implement a new curriculum without any financial resources to do so—and replacing major curriculum components creates big costs.
- Governor DeWine prioritized the “science of reading” approach to literacy teaching, which necessitated millions of dollars in state spending to purchase new curriculum and instructional materials, as well as professional development for educators who need to learn the new model of providing this instruction. No such resources are being allocated to this massive potential shift in social studies teaching.
- If schools are potentially required to shift to a new curriculum, there are significant expenses that would be incurred for all impacted schools and school districts. Our social studies curriculum is currently supported by vetted vendors, approved instructional materials, and professional development that has been deemed appropriate and aligned to current standards. None of these resources are being made available to support a new social studies curriculum.
- Changing curriculum entails significant impacts on testing. Only a small subset of current state tests are aligned to the American Birthright curriculum; new testing, and new support collateral for those new tests, would need to be created. No resources are provided in this bill for this need.
HB 103 will cost more than money: this massive shift in content, standards, and curriculum will create costs in student skill development, too.
- The American Birthright curriculum fails to help students with crucial academic skills like how to analyze a primary source, how to contextualize documents and media, how to craft and refute well-sourced arguments, and how to use skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and problem solving.
- Students should wrestle with complicated truths to best understand the content and to best develop these skills. Inquiry and discourse are widely acknowledged as the best ways to facilitate this learning for students.
- The American Birthright curriculum, by its own admission, does not provide any benchmarks or learning goals. So we are not only asking schools and educators to work with an entirely new curriculum, but we are asking them to do so without any way of measuring what is successful for student learning and what is not.
- The American Birthright course requirements don't meet the College Board’s AP course requirements, which will prevent thousands of Ohio students from receiving otherwise-earned college credits. Ohio’s schools and students are significantly invested in Advanced Placement (AP) coursework, with thousands and thousands of students participating every year. In 2021:
- More than 11,000 Ohio students completed AP United States History
- More than 7,000 Ohio students completed AP Government and Politics
- More than 10,000 Ohio students completing AP Human Geography
HB 103 prioritizes politics over students' futures.
- Our current social studies curriculum was designed to produce Ohio students who are equipped and empowered to be active, civically engaged Ohio adults. The American Birthright curriculum was developed by national extremists interests who are more invested in driving a political agenda than achieving improved student outcomes.
- Students should be exposed to multiple viewpoints, and must develop the ability to analyze multiple perspectives. The American Birthright curriculum advances a single narrative of history that eliminates the perspectives of historically marginalized communities. This will not prepare our students to understand the modern, multiracial democracy in which we are all living.
What do national experts say about the American Birthright curriculum?
These standards are not the product of an evidence-based study; they are merely a risky, untested document that, if they were adopted, would impose wrenching opportunity costs on Ohio students, parents, teachers, and schools.
Emphasizing content in place of critical thinking, American Birthright focuses narrowly on lessons about how students should feel about the United States. The AHA is not opposed to history education with a patriotic bent. But patriotism does not require sacrificing the complexity, contingency, and conflict that produced our world; instead, the version of history here is distorted and flattened, resulting in a narrative in which neither the US nor Europe ever change in any meaningful way.
--The American Historical Association
NCSS has determined that the suggested social studies standards developed by the Civics Alliance do not align with best practices related to the development of social studies standards. If implemented in schools, these suggested standards would have damaging and lasting effects on the civic knowledge of students and their capacity to engage in civic reasoning and deliberation. NCSS does not endorse nor support the use of these standards. In making this determination, NCSS relied upon its 102 years of experience in supporting the teaching and learning of social studies....
[W]e view these suggested standards as an attempt to return to a time when United States social studies classrooms presented a single narrative of U.S. and Western history that glorified selected aspects of history while minimizing the experiences, contributions, and perspectives of Indigenous peoples, people of color, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, the working class, and countless others. The writers of the suggested standards use outdated language, have a clear political motive, and promote content and approaches to social studies and history education that do not align with those recommended by experts in social studies content areas.
--The National Council for the Social Studies
Emphasizing content in place of critical thinking, American Birthright focuses narrowly on lessons about how students should feel about the United States. The AHA is not opposed to history education with a patriotic bent. But patriotism does not require sacrificing the complexity, contingency, and conflict that produced our world; instead, the version of history here is distorted and flattened, resulting in a narrative in which neither the US nor Europe ever change in any meaningful way.
--The American Historical Association
NCSS has determined that the suggested social studies standards developed by the Civics Alliance do not align with best practices related to the development of social studies standards. If implemented in schools, these suggested standards would have damaging and lasting effects on the civic knowledge of students and their capacity to engage in civic reasoning and deliberation. NCSS does not endorse nor support the use of these standards. In making this determination, NCSS relied upon its 102 years of experience in supporting the teaching and learning of social studies....
[W]e view these suggested standards as an attempt to return to a time when United States social studies classrooms presented a single narrative of U.S. and Western history that glorified selected aspects of history while minimizing the experiences, contributions, and perspectives of Indigenous peoples, people of color, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, the working class, and countless others. The writers of the suggested standards use outdated language, have a clear political motive, and promote content and approaches to social studies and history education that do not align with those recommended by experts in social studies content areas.
--The National Council for the Social Studies
TAKE ACTION
HOW TO SUBMIT TESTIMONY
**DO NOT SEND TESTIMONY UNTIL THE APPROPRIATE HEARING IS ANNOUNCED**
STEP 1:
PREPARE YOUR TESTIMONY
Read tips for preparing and submitting testimony HERE
STEP 2:
EMAIL TESTIMONY DOCUMENTS TO COMMITTEE
Email a PDF of your testimony & this completed Witness Slip to
OHRPrimary&[email protected]
**IMPORTANT**
Do NOT send your testimony until the appropriate hearing is announced.
Indicate in your email that you are submitting opposition testimony this bill and ask for a confirmation of receipt.
All testimony will be uploaded HERE
STEP 3:
ARRIVE EARLY FOR IN-PERSON TESTIMONY
Arrive at least 1 hour prior to the scheduled hearing
There is convenient parking in the Statehouse Parking Garage
Sign in on the witness roster in the hearing room
**DO NOT SEND TESTIMONY UNTIL THE APPROPRIATE HEARING IS ANNOUNCED**
STEP 1:
PREPARE YOUR TESTIMONY
Read tips for preparing and submitting testimony HERE
STEP 2:
EMAIL TESTIMONY DOCUMENTS TO COMMITTEE
Email a PDF of your testimony & this completed Witness Slip to
OHRPrimary&[email protected]
**IMPORTANT**
Do NOT send your testimony until the appropriate hearing is announced.
Indicate in your email that you are submitting opposition testimony this bill and ask for a confirmation of receipt.
All testimony will be uploaded HERE
STEP 3:
ARRIVE EARLY FOR IN-PERSON TESTIMONY
Arrive at least 1 hour prior to the scheduled hearing
There is convenient parking in the Statehouse Parking Garage
Sign in on the witness roster in the hearing room