The National Association of Scholars (NAS) and the Civics Alliance are in the happy position of welcoming in short order a second bill from Iowa to reform its K-12 social studies standards. House File 2510 (HF 2510), just introduced by the Iowa House Education Committee, would state clearly what precisely the Iowa social studies standards should do. This is an excellent solution. We endorse it, and we encourage Iowa’s policymakers to adopt it.
We also endorsed, just as enthusiastically, Iowa House File 2286 (HF 2286) which instead would substitute South Dakota’s social studies standards for Iowa’s. We endorse both these bills with equal support because they both fundamentally recognize the seriousness of the Iowa Department of Education’s failure to reform Iowa’s social studies standards according to legislative intent. HF 2286 stated lucidly the necessity for Iowa policymakers to involve themselves directly in producing Iowa’s social studies standards:
- Because academic content standards substantively define curriculum and directly determine what Iowa students must learn, the general assembly finds that precise statutory direction is necessary to satisfy Iowa’s constitutional nondelegation doctrine and to prevent the exercise of unbounded administrative discretion over fundamental questions of educational content. …
- The draft social studies standards that the department of education adopted in 2025 failed to comply with the provisions of 2024 Iowa Acts, chapter 1159, in all of the following ways:
a. Retaining an unreadable and opaque organizational structure that obscures rather than clarifies content requirements.
b. Subordinating factual content knowledge to inquiry-based frameworks that prioritize process over substance.
c. Reclassifying essential historical and civic content as optional or supplementary.
d. Introducing action civics, political advocacy requirements, and ideological categorical frameworks.
e. Omitting required content on western civilization, the founding documents, and constitutional principles.
f. Frustrating legislative intent for clarity, objectivity, and content mastery.
The Iowa Department of Education, unfortunately, has not proven itself capable of following legislative intent. Its dereliction of duty requires Iowa policymakers to state their preferred social studies standards explicitly. HF 2286 and HF 2510 both deserve our enthusiastic support, and that of all Iowans, because they both address that fundamental dereliction of duty.
The two bills take different routes to achieve that same goal. HF 2510, which has been informed by some of our model legislation (including the Social Studies Curriculum Act, the Civics Course Act, the Western Civilization Act, and the United States History Act) essentially directs the Iowa Department of Education to start over again and create new social studies standards. HF 2286 does not assign the Department of Education a role in coming up with new standards, but simply substitutes South Dakota’s social studies standards for Iowa’s.
The two bills take different routes to address the Department of Education’s inability to provide proper social studies standards in response to previous legislation. Iowa policymakers and citizens will have to choose which route based upon whether they think the Iowa Department of Education can actually produce satisfactory social studies standards a second time around. The amount of confidence they entrust to the Department of Education must turn upon credible assurances from the leadership of the Department of Education that they will actually produce thoroughly reformed social studies standards.
If the Department is to be entrusted with producing social studies standards again, we very strongly recommend that it commit to appointing an independent committee to draft the new social studies standards. South Dakota provides a model of how this should be done. This committee should be appointed in consultation with the legislature, be staffed by reform-minded educations, and not include members of the education establishment. Above all, it should not include members associated with either the American Institutes of Research or the National Council for the Social Studies, both of which are fundamentally opposed to substantive education reform. The education establishment, the American Institutes of Research, and the National Council for the Social Studies, are responsible for the Department of Education’s current failed social studies standards. They should not be entrusted again with a mission they have failed to achieve once, and which they conspicuously do not desire to achieve. Entrusting the same personnel with this revision would invite further bureaucratic noncompliance.
Iowa policymakers now have produced two excellent bills for social studies standard reform. We urge that these two groups of reformers make common cause, and agree on a particular approach to use. We do not say which route to choose—or try to prescribe what other changes they might make to ensure the passage of the bill. Iowa policymakers know their constituents and the business of politics better than we can. We simply urge that Iowa policymakers ensure that the Department of Education cannot and will not engage in bureaucratic obstruction of legislative intent again.
Iowa’s policymakers have indicated firmly that they want comprehensive social studies reform. We support them, and encourage them to work flexibly to ensure that they achieve that aim.
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