November 12, 2021

As the New Mexico Public Education Department moves ahead with the adoption process of the new draft Social Studies Standards, it is important to hear and honor the voices of New Mexico’s residents during the review cycle. Included in the voices are the twenty-seven members of the Farmington Municipal Schools instructional staff, whose ideas are woven into the theme of my narrative. To honor those voices and to ensure the new draft social studies standards celebrate the richness of our state’s cultural amalgamation which serves as a model of an American future that welcomes its rapidly emerging diversity, I offer these thoughts on behalf of the Farmington Municipal Schools. 

As a state and nation, it is important for us to understand our history through historical facts rather than opinions. The proposed new draft standards, while well-intended and making an apparent call for use of credible sources, leave many opportunities for additional explanation, clarification, and modification on the part of instructors due to vagueness in meaning of the performance standards. In addition, the new draft standards, which appear to call for greater opportunity for students to discover, understand and create new meaning to our history, through the use of compelling and supporting questions, nevertheless, lack clarity as some performance standards do not provide opportunities for strong inquiry and cognitive demands as outlined in the National Framework. As a further step, I write to express my interest in knowing more about the guiding documents that may have been used in the crafting of the new draft Social Studies Standards. On that line, Team Farmington much prefers the framework as sent in C3 (C3 Social Studies.org). In that regard, Farmington Municipal Schools (hereafter known as Team Farmington) presents the following as Team Farmington’s response to the new draft Social Studies Standards for the state of New Mexico. In expressing these concerns, I offer solutions to better strengthen the overall standards and learning expectations of students throughout the state. 

Included in this letter is my effort to highlight three main areas of concern including:

1. Lack of adherence to the national social studies framework; 

2. Concern that the new draft standards do not clearly frame a guaranteed and viable curriculum; and 

3. Lack of cross-curriculum content connection. 

Area of Concern:  Lack of adherence to the national framework

For the past decade or more, the state of New Mexico has failed to align itself with National Standards in the area of history and civics education. After a review of the “Themes of Social Studies'' and the “Four Dimensions'' for the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies in current draft form, it suggests the NMPED new draft standards writers used editorial licenses for the design template and Anchor/Performance Standards. On many fronts, this creates great concern about the levels in which our students will be positioned to compete in a regional, statewide, and worldwide competitive marketplace. After understanding the large gaps and lack of adherence in the new draft Social Studies Standards as compared to the C3 framework and themes, it is our belief that the state’s students would be better served if New Mexico's new draft standards were more closely aligned with the C3 model.

Team Farmington celebrates the work of New Mexico educators and values the importance of our teachers’ voices. As such, we extend our gratitude for the time and energy taken to serve on the new draft Social Studies Standards writing team. Nevertheless, there is great room for improvement in the architecture of the standards, flow, scaffolding, and growth of concepts between grade levels as well as the opportunity for greater rigor and demand of cognitive skills as an expectation for New Mexico’s K-12 students.  It is my concern that the standards lack depth in which an individual's critical thinking and inquiry skills can be leveraged to truly make informed decisions and understand the content and context of our world, nation, state, and people. It is also my concern that the new draft performance standards include words of implied (see 8.12 “...denied equality….”) bias and/or framed as pre-drawn (see 5.12 “describe how inequity….”) conclusions. Based upon Team Farmington’s review of the proposed new draft standards we are not yet able to determine how the standards were designed from the “End of Grade'' expectations. 

Solutions: 

• You will find the K-12 scope in which Civics, Economics, History, and Geography meet the needs of all students. Team Farmington recommends using Dimension 2, from the C3 framework as the state’s framework of content. 

• Team Farmington recommends removing the developed anchor standard of Ethnic, Cultural, and Identity Studies as it does not align nor are there standards, we have been able to find that support this anchor standard in isolation. Given the amount of time before actual adoption and implementation, there appears to be time to thoughtfully review the performance standards in this anchor standard to integrate or incorporate less divisive performance standards into the ask for revised new draft standards using the C3 model.

• FMS also recommends the anchor standard of Inquiry not be a stand-alone anchor, but leveraged as it is designed in the C3 Framework, which is to be the lens in which Dimension 2 is viewed throughout instruction. 

• Currently, the unpacking of the standards from grade-level expectations to earlier grades does not appear to have a scaffolded approach to the grade band expectations which could be strengthened with a strong knowledge of unpacking standards for prior knowledge, current grade-level expectations, and upcoming learning. 

• A formal review should be conducted and results published, by grade bands, to determine that standards spiral and build on understanding to allow mastery by the end of grade expectations and the culmination of the K-12 sequence. 

Area of Concern:  Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum  

Team Farmington celebrates the hard work of New Mexico educators, leaders, and community members who worked to compose standards that reflect individuals, events, and topics within New Mexico. In a review of the new draft standards, greater attention is needed to perhaps reduce the latitude to a variety of instructional interpretations along with a plethora of avenues in which to meet the expectations of the standards, as written, which may lead to confusion and uncertainty for the new draft standards writers’ intent. This causes great concern in which equity and access to critical content are crucial to the success of students in our state, specifically those who are mobile. Without the proper guardrails in which to maintain a guaranteed, viable and, might I add, equitable curriculum, there is difficulty in ensuring all students are engaged in and provided access to the learning necessary to be successful in college, career, and life.  In the current draft standards, there is room for multiple interpretations which may lead to an intentional or unintentional bias of teaching and learning, specific to standards. In expressing this concern, Team Farmington recognizes some of the C3 standards have been adapted freely and that the essence of the C3 learning may have been lost in the new draft proposal. 

Solutions: 

• All standards within the Anchor Standard of Ethnic, Cultural and Identity studies should be removed as there are no national standards, to be found in our research, to the norm against for learning as well as a concern that there will be a lack of High-Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) to support teachers and students.  

• With a lack of HQIM, there is a risk of staff searching for their own resources that may not have been sufficiently vetted through an adoption process and may or may not have an accurate account of historical facts. 

• Team Farmington’s preferred method of addressing diversity, culture, and NM heritage would be to 

  • Incorporate the new draft social studies standards performance standards curricula ideas that celebrate the diversity, culture, and NM heritage be placed within the current C3 Anchor Standards of History, Civics, Geography, and Economics.  

  • Leverage already existing C3 framework, Dimension 2, of History, Civics, Geography, and Economics to honor the diversity, culture and heritage within NM.  

  • Should NMPED decide to maintain the Anchor Standard “Ethnic, Cultural and Identify Studies,” it is the recommendation of Team Farmington that a new Anchor Standard category called “Culture” be used instead.

• Team Farmington suggests and prefers standards written that lead individuals to believe a single ideal should be removed along with terminology that alludes to or denotes negative perceptions, as these are not universal but personal through study, research, and background.  

  • Should performance standards remain Farmington Schools offer the following edits as examples, but not limited to: 

§  K.5 calls for “Use deliberative and democratic procedures to make decisions about and act on civic problems.” The descriptors “deliberative and democratic” seem high-level vocabulary for K comprehension. Similar language appears on 2.6. Might “discuss and fair” better serve this grade level?

§  1.9 states, “Compare life in New Mexico in the past to life in New Mexico today.” It would seem more purposeful to follow the language 2.10 “Examine and compare....”

§  2.12 has the word attempted could imply failure and negative connotation for the student and, as such, imply a bias. Rather than remove the performance standard, I suggest that the language be changed to “worked to resolve problems” which, in my opinion, opens the standard to inquiry as well as an opportunity for students to describe events where there were conflicts and resolutions through the student lens. 

§  2.16 uses the terminology “one world community….” a definition of one world community might be helpful.

§  3.16 could be restated as an inquiry and discovery question.  Rather than investigate “who”, it could be restated as, “Investigate how goods and services in various world communities impact the lives of those within the community and those around them.” 

§  5.12 uses the phrase, “Describe how inequity in the United States laid the foundation for conflict that continues today.” The use of the term inequity promotes a point of view rather than allowing the student to reach her/his own conclusion.  Might 5.12 be better written to say “Examine and explain how conflicting points of view in the United States may have laid the foundation for conflict that continues today.”

§  6.16 uses the term “negative perception.” As currently written, the phrase presupposes a negative connotation that does not draw from the Dimension Inquiry Arc performance standards of developing questions and planning. As written the performance standard does not support the purpose, process, role, and lens from which the Inquiry Arc should be used as outlined on page 12 of the C3 Framework. 

§  6.3 Why did the writers wait until 6.3 to introduce the term “main topic”? One would have thought the term would begin in K.

§  6.9 through 6.12 - these performance standards that call for the student to “formulate, support, cite, and use” primary sources seem duplicative. It might make more sense to choose two of the four.

§  7.1 Why did the writers wait until (7.1 and 8.1) to insert the words (big idea) in the performance standard?  It would have made more sense to put these words in the K.1 section.

§  7.42 rewrite this performance standard by flipping the sentence to “Identify and explain the similarities and differences on how the Pueblo and Diné communities adapted over time.” 

§  7.59 as written the term destruction as cited in this performance standard, should be removed as it appears to be a value judgement word. The use of the term destruction predisposes and appears to draw bias as it is a judgmental word and, in the process, does not appear to allow students to draw their own conclusions. A better word might be “impact.”

§  7.98 calls for the student to explain examples of “cultural diffusion….” What does this term mean and why introduce it at grade 7?

§  7.102 The writers break from previous performance standards by not including the word credible when tied to sources. Why is this? As an example, consider 3.3, 5.3, and 8.2 - all of which call for credible sources.

§  8.49 More of a curiosity than anything else. I wonder why the Spanish phrase (Identidad Estadounidense) is used when this has not been done before?

§  8.6 uses the phrase “Identify and correct misconceptions about the Emancipation Proclamation.” This appears to be one of the times that the new draft social studies standards’ writers make a pre-determination that something was wrong. Might this be worded differently to allow the students to discover his/her own truth? Might this be better framed by stating, “Investigate the purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation and make an argument for its intended purpose.”?

§  9-12.NMH.9. The phase seems to be lacking a verb starter. I suggest a word such as “create or develop” adaptations of arguments and explanations that feature evocative (note to reader - why the word “evocative - which is to suggest a strong emotion”? Makes more sense to simply say “promotes a strong response) and perspectives….

§  9-12.NMH.18 I don’t know that the word “can” is needed in the performance standard.

§  9-12.US.45 discusses the conflict over slavery leading to the North and South War.  What is the reason that only slavery is listed? Might the standard also list possible disagreements over states’ rights?

§  9-12.NMH.51 only allows students to explore movie and tech industries as contributors to our state’s economy.  Redraft to state:  Analyze ways in which New Mexico’s economy has thrived over time (e.g., movie industry, transportation, technology, oil & gas, etc.) and understand their impact. 

§  9-12.NMH.54 same as above, the space industry is but one way in which NM land can be leveraged for innovative and growing businesses.  

Any performance standard that is declarative and duplicative in its entirety should be removed or edited to build on prior standards, with new learnings added as a true spiral to the concept.  

• If the standard outlines procedural knowledge, then the process should be identifiable within the standard for mastery and should be repeated. 

Team Farmington suggests consistency in language and terminology in performance standards throughout the K-12 document as noted in 7.102 with the removal of credible. 

The following performance standards have grammatical errors: 

• 2.8 is out of alignment with other bulleted points

• 2.10 is out of alignment with other bulleted points

• 2.11 is out of alignment with other bulleted points

• 3.3 Determine the credibility of one source - might the terms primary and secondary be added for clarifying purposes?

• 7.78 The word sources should have been included “Analyze primary and secondary … to explain….”

• 9-12.Civ. 29. There is an unneeded apostrophe in the sentence “....it’s” should be “its”

• 9-12.NMH.47 and 48 are one continued performance standard. It should read. Demonstrate historical causation by using multiple perspectives to conduct historical an analysis of the Civil Rights era in New Mexico

Area of Concern:  Lack of Cross Content Connections 

After review, there are many cross-content connections, specifically those tied to English Language Arts (ELA)/Literacy standards that are excluded from the drafted standards. Within the C3 framework on page 20 in Tables 3 & 4 they clearly show the alignment and critical nature of ELA/Literacy standards within social studies; this is lacking in the new draft NM Social Studies Standards document. 

Solution:  

Any standard or concept in which it supports, strengthens or enhances an already drafted standard from New Mexico Common Core State Standards (NMCCSS) should be referenced for cross content connections. 

For example: The Inquiry Arc (Dimensions 1, 3 & 4) have a direct correlation to Common Core State Standards for ELA; however, the English Language Arts are never referenced in the new draft social studies standards.

In closing, I thank the New Mexico Public Education Department for encouraging public comment. It is my hope the suggestions submitted by Team Farmington are found to have merit and, as such, included in the new draft Social Studies Standards.

Respectfully,

Eugene J. Schmidt, PhD

Superintendent