Education Secretary Joe Graves’s Hillsdale-rigged K-12 math standards haven’t drawn nearly as much fire as the ideologically biased social studies standards he and Kristi Noem pushed three years ago. But Wednesday’s public hearing in Aberdeen should have made clear to the Board of Education Standards once again that Secretary Graves isn’t great at driving the curriculum standards revision process:
The proposed changes to math standards meanwhile drew written comments from 11 teachers so far. One commenter was both positive and negative, while the other 10 criticized a variety of proposed changes. Two pointed out that teachers would have difficulty finding textbooks oriented toward the proposed more South Dakota-centric standards [Bob Mercer, “State DOE Gets Pushback on Math, Health Standards,” KELO-TV, 2025.10.15].
Where the Hillsdale social studies standards drew criticism for, among other things, packing too much age-inappropriate content in, Graves’s math standards are catching heck for taking too much out. DOE’s Shannon Malone acknowledged the revision erred in cutting some important material from middle school standards, but math teachers said the revision still cuts too much and relies too much on questionable standards from Arkansas:
Testifying as an opponent was Sharon Vestal, a South Dakota State University mathematics professor who emphasized that she was speaking in her personal capacity and as president for the South Dakota Council of Teaching Mathematics.
Vestal said she understood that North Dakota standards were considered but found Arkansas and Archimedes puzzling. She pointed to NAEP scores that showed Arkansas’ math scores were inferior to South Dakota in grades 4 and 8. “If we’re doing OK, why change them?” she asked.
Vestal said she was pleased that 8 Standards for Mathematical Practice would be restored — she was one of the written commenters who asked why they were removed — but questioned, as a geometry course teacher, why 30 of the 47 proposed geometry standards come directly from the Arkansas standards. She acknowledged that the current standards are “dense” but said too much was removed.
Another opponent was Susan Gilkerson, a teacher from Oldham-Ramona-Rutland school district. She liked some of the proposed changes but was concerned that “the meat was taken off the bones.”
“It’s telling us what we’re doing but not telling us how far to go,” Gilkerson said [Mercer, 2025.10.15].
Graves said Arkansas recently revised its math standards to their current form, so test results don’t reflect their effect. Funny: Graves admits he’s pushing new standards that don’t have empirical evidence to demonstrate their effectiveness.
In the written comments submitted so far, Montrose math teacher extraordinaire Cindy Kroon hit on a practical and expensive problem—Graves’s ideological drive to rub out the vestiges of Common Core standards write South Dakota out of the textbook market:
I am concerned about the impact of the changes on school curriculum. Publishers write for large markets, and concentrate on covering the Common Core standards because that is their largest market. The current SD standards were originally adopted and updated with this in mind.
Where will we find curriculum that matches the new standards? The SD market is much too small for any publisher to be interested in writing to our custom standards. If adopted, these standards will require SD teachers to basically write their own textbooks adapted to these non-standard standards. SD teachers do not have time to do such extensive curriculum adaptation and supplementation in addition to their already heavy workloads [Cindy Kroon, written comment submitted on proposed revised K-12 math standards, posted by Board of Education Standards 2025.10.15].
Douglas math teacher Kelly Coates supports Kroon’s critique:
…I know there was a lot of public backlash over the Common Core standards of two rounds of updates ago. I understand partially drifting from those for the sake of public sentiment, but going to a SD exclusive set of standards also makes it more difficult to find curriculum materials from national publishers in direct line with SD standards. We are still mostly in line with national traditions, but it seems unlikely that many publishers will create materials directly in line with our new standards. That creates more work for cross referencing/supplementing for busy teachers. Not sure what I would propose as a fix for that, but thought it was of note [Kelly Coates, written comment to BOES, posted 2025.10.15].
But have faith, math teachers and textbook buyers: I’m sure the Hillsdale activists will be more than happy to sell us textbooks aligning with their unproven standards.
Next BOES hearing on the K-12 math standards is Tuesday, November 10, 9 a.m. at the Sioux Falls Ramkota.
Just don’t mention diversity or anything woke. Keep it in the closet and things will be fine.
Kristi’s social studies just didn’t include the best way to kill your disobedient puppy. For instance where to shoot the puppy to inflict the least pain. If it is really disobedient how to make it suffer more.. Those kind of details are important morality questions. What type of gun to purchase, a handgun or just use your dads 30 of six, etc. Social Studies are complicated.