A conservative wing of the State Board of Education objected Wednesday to new social studies standards designed to ensure North Carolina’s K-12 students learn “hard truths” about American history.
Those truths, supporters of the new standards contend, include complete and full-throated lessons about the nation’s original sin of slavery and the lasting racism and discrimination that followed.
“When it comes to facing the hard truths of our American narrative, what and how we teach history in our public schools matters, and it matters incredibly at this moment in history,” said state board advisor Matt Bristow-Smith, principal of Edgecombe Early College High and the 2019 Wells Fargo North Carolina Principal of the Year.