2026 is heating up! Social studies wars are brewing in at least four states. Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea, stay tuned, for news from the front lines …

Social Studies Wars: Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming

You can get an overview of the state of play from an article in the Federalist, Red States Struggling To Deliver On Promises Of Pro-American History In Public Schools, which surveys the struggles in Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming. In all of those, there are wars about what to do with social studies.

In Iowa, there are two different bills designed to reverse the Iowa Department of Education’s hijacking of reformed social studies standards. House File 2286 would simply replace Iowa’s social studies standards with South Dakota’s. House File 2510, building upon model bills by the Civics Alliance, would direct Iowa’s Department of Education to start over again and create better standards. Over here at the Civics Alliance, we’re delighted that there are two strong efforts to ensure that Iowa has properly reformed social studies standards. We like ‘em both! And what we care about most is that 1) all reformers ultimately support one effort; 2) that whatever emerges is sufficient to prevent further sabotage by the Iowa Department of Education; and 3) that whatever compromise emerges commands majority support from Iowa’s policymakers. We want comprehensive social studies reform, but we assume that state policymakers know better than we do how exactly to get there.

In Oklahoma, the final 2026 social studies standards guts most of the substantive reform from the 2024 Draft Social Studies standards. There is more content-knowledge detail than in the 2019 standards, but largely to support establishment (liberal) priorities. The electives in Ancient and Medieval and World History and in 20th Century Totalitarianism were removed. This is a great disappointment. There is a public campaign to try to at least get Oklahoma back to what was presented early in 2025 (itself some watered down from the 2024 Draft Standards). We are working to support this. Oklahoma is an object lesson in how the bureaucracy, edit by edit, can slowly gut social studies reform. Oklahoma is still in a better position than it was in 2019—but much work will need to be done for the next round of social studies reform.

Resources Round-Up

Testimony

Would you like to be on a list of people prepared to give testimony in favor of a state bill to reform civics education? If so, please get in touch with me: randall@nas.org. We need people ready to testify in all 50 states—ideally, with some personal tie to the education system, but testimony from any citizen would be good.

Civics Alliance Now Has Twelve State Affiliates 

The Civics Alliance is building a network of state affiliates—groups dedicated to removing action civics in their states, whom we will list on our website. We now have twelve affiliates, in Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Texas. If you would like to form such an organization, or suggest an existing organization, please get in touch with David Randall (randall@nas.org).

Monthly American Birthright Zoom Meeting 

The Civics Alliance will have its monthly Zoom session devoted to social studies standards reform on Monday, March 2, at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Please email randall@nas.org if you would like to join these monthly Zoom meetings.

Social Studies Standards Revision Schedule

2026/Current: Colorado, Maryland, North Dakota, South Carolina; continuing: Arizona, Kentucky, Montana, Ohio, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming


2027: Hawaii, Kansas


2029: Louisiana


2030: Minnesota

2031: Illinois


No Revision Currently Scheduled: California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington.

Please email David Randall (randall@nas.org) if you are interested in further information about your state’s social studies revision process, and what you can do to participate.

The Civics Bill Tracker 

Civics Alliance supporters may now use the Civics Bill Tracker to track all proposed federal and state legislation related to civics.

Public Action 

We encourage Civics Alliance supporters to inform the public and policymakers about the stakes and consequences of action civics bills.

David Randall is the Executive Director of the Civics Alliance and Director of Research at the National Association of Scholars

Photo by Mahendra Kumar on Unsplash