For months now, Minnesota's courageous and passionate education commissioner, Cheri Pierson Yecke, has been the target of unrelenting criticism for her team's proposed social studies standards. (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=8#370, http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=114#1433 and http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=21#129 for earlier coverage.) Opponents are even lobbying the state Senate to block her confirmation, scheduled for later this month. Yecke supporters are now rallying, too, including a petition endorsing her. (To access it, go to http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/confirm_yecke/.) Also last week, Yecke's proposed standards cleared their first legislative hurdle, passing the House Education Policy Committee 18-12, with all but one Republican supporting them and every Democrat opposing. The Minnesota Council for the Social Studies, which has been fighting Yecke and these standards tooth and nail, is now focusing its attention on the House GOP leadership. Last Friday, Council President Nance Purcell approached House Speaker Steve Sviggum with a letter from MCSS members requesting that the proposed standards be scrapped and rewritten by "a stakeholders panel that consists mostly of active, licensed teachers." House Republicans aren't surprised or overly concerned about the continued opposition to the proposed standards, saying that "it merely reflects the difficulty of making everyone happy on such issues as what history shall be taught in the state's classrooms." Watch this space for updates.
"Social studies standards teachers request a rewrite," Twin Cities Pioneer Press, March 6, 2004
"Standards advance in House," by John Welsh, Minnesota Pioneer Press, March 5, 2004
Minnesota Education Reform News, March 4, 2004