Montgomery County Public Schools adopts Learning for Justice’s “Social Justice Standards”

On June 28, 2022, Montgomery Community Media (MCM) reported that the Board of Education for Montgomery County Public Schools “unanimously approved on Tuesday revised social studies frameworks for fourth and fifth grades, introducing a new learning standard for elementary students to be implemented starting the 2023-2024 school year.” This new standard is also reportedly “in the frameworks for kindergarten through third grades.”

The news outlet additionally reported that “the county elementary social studies curriculum will include additional details, such as local history and the narratives of historically marginalized groups.” MCM also provided comments from “MCPS pre-K-12 Social Studies Supervisor Tracy Oliver-Gary”:

Additional goals that have influenced our framework development based on feedback include embedding our local Montgomery County history in our curriculum, providing opportunities for students to connect what they are learning to contemporary issues and events and embedding social justice standards as well as anti-bias and anti-racist content to include the narratives that represent our student population.

MCM reported that the school district’s curriculum will now include Learning for Justice’s “Social Justice Standards.” The organization Learning for Justice has pushed for its “Social Justice Standards” to be adopted in schools throughout the country. The document for these standards includes goals to achieve for students. One goal is that “students will develop language and historical and cultural knowledge that affirm and accurately describe their membership in multiple identity groups.” Another goal appears to outright state that the purpose of the “Social Justice Standards” is to turn students into political activists: “Students will make principled decisions about when and how to take a stand against bias and injustice in their everyday lives and will do so despite negative peer or group pressure.”