When read in full, the SEL draft standards show some promise, but are also disturbing. 

Forced group identification should be of grave concern to anyone truly interested in a diverse society.  As early as first grade, the draft standards require a child to identify groups in society and soon after, their place in these groups.  Who defines these groups? (the US census? visible differences? does the child self-identify?)  What makes a group?  There's no mention of race, religion, national origin, spoken language, physical abilities . . . what is unmentioned in the standards is more troubling that what is written.

I note the paucity of front-line educators on the implementation and advisory panels.

I respectfully request that the standards get a serious culling.  As a start, eliminate the group-based standards in all age bands (that's 18/20 of the appearance of the word "group") and the bias-based standards in all age bands (that's 7/8 appearances of the word "bias").  

Redirect the time and energy contemplated to implement these high-effort, low-benefit standards to real work to close the achievement gap.  Let's have real differentiated instruction in the classrooms.  Let's bring real measurement and data to the problem at hand.  Let's teach practical skills to prepare a workforce.  We need thinkers and doers, not children who have been taught what group they belong to.

When we group schoolchildren, it should be by their instructional requirements, academic interests, and career goals, not to further identity politics.