A Senate bill with 17 co-sponsors would require Vermont schools to teach students about the Holocaust.
When the Senate Education Committee discussed the bill, S.189, on Thursday, there was no questioning the importance of teaching about the genocide, which involved the systematic murders of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II.
But committee members discussed the best way to go about it. One option was a wide-scale Holocaust curriculum and analysis of how schools within the state teach it; another was to establish a new job in the Department of Education that would work with teachers on ways to explore the topic.
Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington, said that, with fascism, book-banning and anti-Semitism on the rise, it’s important to teach what happened during the Holocaust, so it can never happen again. In 2020’s Millennial Holocaust survey, only 54% of Vermont students could identify two of the most infamous Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz and Treblinka.
While the federal government collects data every year about courses taught in Vermont, the information is not specific enough to show gaps in the curriculum. The data includes information on each course, enrollment, staff assigned to that course and students’ results.
However, it leaves out information on course syllabi, content, material, activities or instructional approaches, according to Jess DeCarolis, division director of the Department of Education’s Student Pathways Division. That’s the kind of information needed to understand how the Holocaust is being taught.
Collecting much more detailed data would be extremely time-consuming and expensive, Wendy Geller, director of data management and analysis for the education department, told the committee. And, if the state wanted to collect that information, the state government would have to finance the project, rather than use federal money.
The pandemic has placed enormous stress on teachers and schools in general, DeCarolis said, advising against adding a new curriculum mandate. Instead, she recommended the Senate propose funding for professional development on how to teach the Holocaust effectively.
Teachers can also cause harm when they’re teaching something they do not have adequate knowledge of or without the resources they need, said Amanda Garcés, director of policy, education and outreach at the Vermont Human Rights Commission. In fact, Garcés said, a poorly taught lesson can seed bigotry.
Professional development programs on the Holocaust could be created by the Department of Education, collaborating with the Vermont Holocaust Memorial, for instance, or through funding a position within the education department — similar to DeCarolis’ work on equity and student outcomes — who would work directly with teachers.
Senators hope funding for this position could come from the federal government, rather than state money.
“The federal government should be coming through right now. We’re trying to save them, democracy, by saving ourselves from ourselves,” said Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden.
