Senate drops bill on how to teach about America after pushback
Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the February 14, 2025 issue of Indiana Education Insight.
Another fight over regulating how Indiana teachers should teach about American history and ideals appears to be over . . . at least for this session.
Last week, Sen. Spencer Deery (R) of West Lafayette proposed SB 257 before the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development, presenting it as a way to resolve an apparent mindset among young people who have developed a grim view of U.S. history.
SB 257 would mandate that teachers base their history or civics instruction on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution – those principles defined as being ideas of limited government, separation of powers, and checks and balances, individual liberty, for example.
The bill also forbids “fostering a national identity” that the U.S. is founded on racial identity or discrimination, gender identity or discrimination, victimization, class struggle, a hierarchy of privileges, or systemic exclusion.
In his presentation, Sen. Deery referenced a study from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, finding that only 39% of young Americans are grateful for America’s founding. Additionally, more than one-half support writing a new Constitution, and 40% view the founding fathers “more as villains than heroes.”
“This is an issue that keeps me up at night. Perhaps, more than any other,” Sen. Deery explains. “Because if the next generation is not cherishing the founding principles that we view and derive our liberties from, what’s going to happen to our country, what’s going to happen to our nation?”
The bill was met with significant pushback, both from Democrats on the committee and the majority of the educators who testified on it last week. The top concern conflated the bill as an attempt to “whitewash” American history.
After sitting on that pushback over the weekend (and perhaps also reflecting on the three-hour discussion on the Senate floor regarding a bill of a similar nature dealing with curriculum about diversity, equity and inclusion that occurred the day after this bill’s hearing), Senate Education Chair Jeff Raatz (R) of Richmond elected to not move forward with SB 257 come Monday morning.
This outcome is not necessarily surprising given Sen. Raatz’s reaction immediately following testimony when he chose to hold the bill for a week in committee to work on “technical issues.” He originally wanted to vote the bill out and not meet again on February 12 before this session’s halfway point.
“There was a lot of pushback on it,” Sen. Raatz divulges to us. “I like the bill, but, I suspect we’re going to spend some time and try to thread this needle and still get done with what Sen. Deery wants to do.”
Sen. Deery agreed the bill could use some work, especially after hearing feedback. But, he’s still dedicated to passing this legislation in the future, maybe next year.
“I want to get it right, because it is sensitive. I don’t want it to be guilty of anything that people are accusing it of doing, which I don’t think it is,” Deery tells us. “But I fully support making sure that we get it right.” He adds, “I really think, though, that if done right, this shouldn’t be really that controversial.”
The focus of his bill, he argues, is that it’s not banning teaching certain parts of history . . . but rather stating that it’s not the place of K-12 schools to debate whether the Founding Fathers or founding principles of the U.S. were good or not – adding that can be debated freely at the collegiate level. He explains he sees younger Americans believing in the “malicious man theory,” the belief the U.S. government was founded only on the interests of the privileged and was designed to hold others back.
Much of the criticism came in the form of arguments over intent versus reality in the bill language, given the difficulty of trying to legislate what context teachers are teaching in or what concepts they are “fostering” when talking about historical events.
Democrats disagreed with Deery over whether SB 257 would inhibit teaching the truths about difficult times in history, such as slavery and the Three-Fifths Compromise or the Civil Rights Movement, or women’s suffrage. “Someone could look at your bill and say, ‘I don’t know if I should be teaching that,’ ” Sen. J.D. Ford (D) of Indianapolis pressed Sen. Deery.
Similar sentiments were expressed by everyone who testified against the bill. Randy Hudgins, a social studies teacher at Warren Central High School, testified against the bill, arguing that its restrictions on content places a target on teachers’ backs, who could face complaints from parents over how they teach about times in history that address issues of race and gender inequality.
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because it is.
Again, if you’ve been paying attention to education policy debates over the last couple of years, this is strikingly similar to discussions had in 2022 over teaching “divisive concepts,” such as race and gender, stemming from fears over whether Critical Race Theory was being taught in K-12 schools.
Another aside here: You may recall that Sen. Deery engaged in similar debates and criticism over his intent versus unintended effects of bill language when he authored SEA 202-2024 last year, the law which affects universities’ tenure process and requires faculty to “foster intellectual diversity.”
Deery tells us that is a little by design, informing us he wrote SB 257 a little vaguer on purpose. But he may be rethinking that as he continues to work on the concept. He explains “My approach always is more leave it a little bit more vague, which gives me criticism If it’s a little more vague, and then it empowers decision-makers on the ground to navigate that vagueness, which is what the bill did.”
Still, the ghost of dead bills past did specifically come up in committee during discussion on SB 257, when Sen. Fady Qaddoura (D) of Indianapolis acknowledged Sen. Deery’s points to be similar to the ones made in 2022 when HB 1134-2022 was heard in the Senate. “We love our country, but we should have no issue teaching our history to avoid the future,” Sen Qaddoura expresses. He explains to Deery, “I think you’re trying to micromanage feelings and emotions and thoughts of people.”
Sen. Deery rejected the similarities to HB 1134, reminding colleagues that he wasn’t even a lawmaker in 2022. He also clarified several times in committee that his intent is to not stop any teacher from teaching about “faults” in U.S. history.
He tells us on Monday, “I may be kicking myself a little bit for not being a little bit more assertive of that on the floor that I want you to teach these things,” The west Lafayette lawmaker explains, “I’m not trying to stop that. I want you to teach them that slavery was a failure to live up to our constitutional ideals, and that’s the way to do it.”
Sen. Andrea Hunley (D) of Indianapolis, a former public school principal, also called out the bill for overstepping and trying to police the art of teaching. “I just am having a really hard time understanding how we can write a bill that’s going to police how a teacher teaches by someone who doesn’t have expertise in pedagogy,” she asserts.
Deery acknowledges that most teachers in Indiana are not teaching civics or history in this pessimistic frame he presented, but he rejects the idea that he’s “manufacturing a problem.” He
argues, “Just because most are doing the right thing doesn’t mean that the few that aren’t, we should ignore those.”
So, SB 257 is dead – for now. Expect Sen. Deery to return with a new form of his proposal next year, as he plans to continue working on it over the interim.