$1,000-Per-Day Consultant to Youngkin Administration Admits Draft History Standards Document “deeply flawed,” “hastily and irresponsibly prepared,” But Complains of (Supposed) “organized political attack”

As we are all well aware by this point, the Youngkin administration in general, and the draft history/social studies standards specifically, are a hot mess (e.g., “full of historical errors and inaccuracies“; “racist, historically and factually incorrect…and reflect political bias,” “whitewashed, false” and “in bad faith“).

Case in point? See below for a letter in which Sheila Byrd Carmichael, a paid consultant (“$1,000 a day for up to 15 days to ‘provide expert analysis and conduct an academic review’ of the prior draft history standards, ‘consult with Virginia and national historians and social scientists” for historical accuracy, and more’) to Youngkin’s Department of Education (who “has written about ways to expand “classical schools” for the conservative-leaning Fordham Institute”), in which Carmichael apologizes to Susan Wise Bauer of “The Well-Trained Mind” (after Bauer threatened legal action), complains about a supposed “organized political attack,” yet also admits that the draft history standards document was “hastily and irresponsibly prepared” and “deeply flawed.” Bottom line: it looks like this entire process creating Youngkin’s draft history standards was deeply flawed, incompetent, deceitful, etc. And, of course, ultimately the “fish rots from the head down,” namely Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his top education appointees…