Who directed what? On 9/11 in Massachusetts schools

 You may have missed it in--gestures to universe--but we had a bit of a thing last week with headlines saying that Governor Healey was ORDERING Massachusetts schools to teach about 9/11, which seems to have been in response to this Boston Globe article about families of those who died during the 9/11 organizing for it to be mandatory, which includes these sentences:

There are 14 states where teaching students about what happened on and after 9/11 is required. But Massachusetts, where the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center took off, where so many families were affected by the wars that followed, is not one of them.

A whole generation of Massachusetts kids has grown up without the 9/11 story being a required part of their education.

The thing is? That's false.
What Massachusetts public school students are required to learn in history and social studies is included in the History and Social Science Frameworks, last updated in 2018. That link is to all 217 pages of it. And right there in the History II section on page 138 under Topic 5: The United States and globalization is this: 

Evaluate the effectiveness of the federal government’s response to international terrorism in the 21st century, including the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., the Homeland Security Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. 

...which is explicitly, yes, teaching about 9/11. 

Here's the statement Healey's office actually issued:

“All students should be taught about 9/11 and its aftermath, which is a tragic and important piece of both our state and our nation's history. I've directed the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to work together to ensure that it is fully incorporated into school curriculum frameworks. I’m grateful to the families of 9/11 victims who have advocated for this and are making sure that we never forget this horrific tragedy, the incredible displays of heroism on that day, or the thousands of lives that were lost.” 

So it would appear that this direction--which, I'll add, is overstepping, because the only person the Governor has the actual legal authority to "direct" there is actually the Secretary of Education, who has a single seat on the Board--is going to make for a pretty brief conversation.

I suspect the misunderstanding is that many states like to make BIG BOLD MOVES by REQUIRING BY LAW that particular things be taught, which is a lousy and piecemeal way of creating a public education system. Massachusetts has the radical notion that the first place the conversation about what students need to learn should be had is with educators, with that process then going to a public body that exists purely for educational purposes. 

We should refuse to be sucked into this worse processes for the purposes of making headlines.  
And the next time someone writes about what does and doesn't get taught in Massachusetts schools, it might be nice if they looked in the actual place we keep that.

Isn't this a nice sunset?