American Birthright, Oklahoma Social Studies Draft Standards

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) and the Civics Alliance are delighted and honored that the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) has published draft social studies standards that have been significantly informed by American Birthright: The Civics Alliance’s Model K-12 State Standards and by our History of Communism: Model State Academic Standards for Social Studies. This is not final: Oklahoma is still taking public comments, and the Oklahoma state legislature must approve the standards. (If you are in Oklahoma, or know Oklahomans, I urge you to provide public comment in favor of the draft social studies standards, both to OSDE and to legislators–as well as to urge further revision, in ways we suggest in our public comment.) If and when the standards are finally approved, there will still be work to improve curriculum frameworks, model lesson plans, textbooks, teacher education and licensure, etc. But the work that all of you has done to create and to support American Birthright already has had a significant effect.

Our work is generational, aiming for broad success in America in a 20+ year campaign. We published American Birthright in 2022. Woodland Park School District in Colorado adopted American Birthright in 2023. Oklahoma published these draft standards in December 2024. To have achieved so much so quickly is far above expectations. We will build upon this success for further work throughout the United States.

Our materials have informed the draft Oklahoma social studies standards in many particular locations. I believe our materials have informed the draft Oklahoma social studies standards most strongly in two new high school electives, Ancient and Medieval World History (pp. 143-153) and History of Twentieth Century Totalitarianism (pp. 154-163). I believe you all can take especial pride in the effect of our work on these components of the draft Oklahoma social studies standards.

Oklahoma’s draft social studies standards are not copy-and-paste from American Birthright and History of Communism. Too much, alas, is still informed by the National Council for the Social Studies’ counterproductive College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. We regret that OSDE has, for the present, foregone an opportunity to implement the best possible social studies standards. While this current round of revision is an excellent start, we hope that OSDE will build upon it in the future to provide the fundamental structural reform that Oklahoma’s social studies standards still need. But we published American Birthright and History of Communism to be models, to be adapted by states and school districts to suit their local conditions and traditions. OSDE’s draft Oklahoma standards are emphatically Oklahoman standards and Oklahomans have decided which of our materials are appropriate to use. That is as it should be.

Our public comment provides further details of our assessment of Oklahoma’s draft social studies standards. But the point of this letter is to say Thank You! You all have provided a great deal of support to American Birthright, from its conception to the present. The Expert Committee members in particular volunteered many hours of work to revise the draft American Birthright standards. Your work (cross fingers there are no hiccups in the approval process!) looks as if it will have significant effect to improve social studies education in Oklahoma–to ensure that Oklahoma students have the opportunity to learn about and cherish the West’s and America’s ideals and institutions of liberty, republican self-government, and civic virtue. I am grateful to you, the National Association of Scholars and the Civics Alliance are grateful to you, and (assuming the final standards preserve the reforms of the draft standards!) Oklahoma citizens will be grateful to you as well.

Best,

David Randall

Director of Research, National Association of Scholars