District 65 Removes Civil War Unit from 5th Grade Curriculum

Module Removed from Brand New $1.1 Million Literacy Curriculum for Centering the White Experience

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In 2023, District 65 purchased new K-5 literacy curriculum for over a million dollars. One of the units, Module 3 for Fifth Grade, consisted of a unit about the Civil War. In February, the District’s Director of Literacy removed this unit from the curriculum at the last minute, citing that it centered de-emphasizes the impact of the Civil War on Black Americans. You can read the email sent on February 23, 2024 to Fifth Grade Teachers, obtained via FOIA Request;

Hello 5th Grade Teachers,

Knowing that the next module begins on Monday, March 4th, the Literacy Department has an important update for Wit and Wisdom in trimester 3:

In an effort to make responsive decisions that align to our Vision for Equitable Literacy Instruction, fifth grade will teach Module 4 "Breaking Barriers" instead of Module 3 "A War Between Us." We made this decision because the third module centers the White experience as students learn about the Civil War and in doing so, de-emphasizes the impact of the Civil War on Black Americans.

Please make sure you have your Module 4 print teacher's editions, student editions, and the core text We Are the Ship by Kadir Nelson as we head into launching this next module. We will dig into Module 4 on March 6th during our Early Release Professional Learning Session.

We know you're working hard to internalize our new resources, and that this does require a pivot. We appreciate all of your work and advocacy in supporting your students. Please note that curricular documents will be updated in the K-5 ELA Curriculum Guide by the end of next week. In the meantime, please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Module 3: A War Between Us

I have a copy of the student handbook for this Module. However, I can’t share it because I could be sued by the publisher for copyright infringement.¹ What I can say is that the module consists of three primary readings:

• The Boys' War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War by Jim Murphy

• The River Between Us by Richard Peck

• The Women Who Went to the Field by Clara Barton

Having reviewed the readings and the student handbook, I will say that the District is mostly right in their assertion that this module “centers the White experience.” Two of the readings don’t feature any Black characters at all. However, the River Between Us, does feature some Black folks, including a semi-major character, Calinda. But, ultimately, I don’t think either book really centers the Black experience.

This is all nuts to me because the Black experience during the War is absolutely a story we should teach to our children (as Americans). Is there any story more important to the human experience than liberation and escape from the shackles of slavery?² In fact, this commitment is even in the District 65 Land Acknowledgement;

It is within District 65’s responsibility as an academic institution to disseminate knowledge about Black and Indigenous peoples and, marginalized peoples writ large, consistent with our commitment to equity, we will work towards sharing truth and promoting healing for the sake of our children and families.

Wit and Wisdom: $1.1 Million Dollar Curriculum

This curriculum (Wit and Wisdom) is brand new - District 65 spent over $1.1 million dollars in this literacy curriculum change, approved in the April 2023 Board Meeting. In a Roundtable story about the change they write;

On Wednesday, she recommended the District 65 board purchase $1.1 million of new materials based on the Heggerty, Fundations and Geodes curricula for kindergarten through second grade and the Wit & Wisdom curriculum for all elementary grades.

Over the last three years, the District has spent over $1.5 million dollars with the vendor of this curriculum, Great Minds Publishing;

From a pedagogical standpoint, I have no idea if this is better or worse literacy curriculum. I’ve heard opinions on both sides of the argument and you can read the comments on the Roundtable story. You can also read the Administration’s presentation to the Board in April 2023, which makes the case. If you have an opinion on this, please comment.

However, the following is also true;

• This module remained on the schedule for the third trimester until February 23, 2024 - right before it was about to start.

• The District paid more than a million dollars for a curriculum where we are now throwing out at least one part of it for not meeting our community standards.

It raises the question: did anyone on the Board or the Administration do their due diligence when reviewing this curriculum? If we’re looking at everything through an “equity lens” - how did this curriculum pass muster until like a week before it was about to start? In theory, they should’ve either skipped Module 3 from the start or found a replacement book.³ If I was reviewing curriculum, the first place I would look would be the unit on the Civil War!

I asked the District for a response, I’ve posted in full below

Yes, this English Literacy and Language Arts unit is part of our new literacy curricular resources, which align to the district’s vision for equitable literacy instruction. Wit and Wisdom is taught in K-5 monolingual classrooms and focuses on reading comprehension, evidence-based writing, and fluency.

A full year course of study with Wit and Wisdom is composed of four modules. To allow our educators time to familiarize themselves with the rigorous content and pacing in this first year of implementation, and based on guidance from the publisher, the department decided all educators would teach three modules this year instead of all four. After reviewing Module 3 and gathering feedback from fifth grade educators, the department decided to teach modules 1, 2, and 4 instead of the planned 1, 2, and 3 in fifth grade.

District 65 is collaborating with the publisher to strengthen fifth grade’s Module 3, “A War Between Us,” specifically to ensure that all perspectives are included as part of the Civil War. Fifth grade’s Module 4, “Breaking Barriers,” includes a focus on research and provides a deep focus on informational texts, which is one key area of focus with the new literacy curriculum.

Students absolutely learn about the Civil War as a part of our social science curriculum. Our seventh and eighth graders have a two year course focused on the history of the U.S.

I asked the publisher for comment and got a standard PR-answer.

We strive to create inclusive materials representative of the diversity within our society and of the highest quality for children. The thousands of schools and districts we work with routinely make decisions for themselves and their students as to how best to use them.

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1. I will continue to die on a hill that materials related to education, equity, or both should be open-source materials and not heavily guarded secrets. Copyright continues to prevent the community from even being aware of what is taught to children and having a community voice in this.

2. I grew up in Michigan, where the curriculum when I was a child (I’m 40) was all about how the Civil War was about “economics” - as an adult, I’ve come to believe this is mostly a bullshit side narrative. All you have to do is read the declarations of secession to understand what the war was about - and it was slavery.

3. I personally think they should ditch the “Boys War” book and engage the community to see if they can locate a book appropriate for fifth graders that centers the Black experience. Surely one must exist and there is literally no community on Earth to find this book than the people of Evanston, Illinois.