The Advocate. June 4 , 2024.
Editorial: Ideological content has no place in Louisiana public schools
Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley points proudly to the state’s “new, rigorous social studies standards that teach students about American exceptionalism and our quest for a more perfect union.”
We worry, though, that Brumley’s embrace of a controversial producer of educational content, including videos, falls short of supporting those standards. And we share critics’ concerns that some of the ideas promoted in PragerU’s videos not only mislead but sow ideological divisions over how to interpret our nation’s complicated past.
Brumley last week said teachers can now play videos by the conservative nonprofit that produces what it calls “pro-America” content, but that critics label propaganda. He noted that the videos are optional content for teachers, not required.
But in a news release, PragerU said its new partnership with the Louisiana Department of Education is the most “expansive” of its relationships with a handful of states, with more to come. It said the department has approved an extensive list of PragerU Kids’ content and videos for social studies.
We share concerns that have been widely raised by education experts about the content of some of PragerU’s offerings. The organization, for example, has produced videos that question whether only a tiny fraction of Muslims support terrorism and raise doubts about the motives of Black Lives Matter protesters, and that sometimes use right-wing firebrands such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens as narrators and attack liberal causes such as gender-affirming care for transgender youth, climate change, the Democratic Party and teachers unions.
In one widely quoted PragerU Kids video for students in grades 3-5, an animated Christopher Columbus tells two time-traveling children “being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no?” Another portrays abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who was formerly enslaved, defending the Founding Fathers’ actions when they allowed slavery to continue in the new country.
The announcement has brought blowback by some Louisiana lawmakers, who say PragerU should have no place in the state’s public schools.
“Louisiana’s children deserve unbiased, fact-based education free of political agendas,” said a statement by Rep. Edmond Jordan, D-Baton Rouge, who chairs the Black Caucus. “Instead, Superintendent Brumley betrayed his responsibilities to help rewrite history in service of right-wing extremists.”
This all comes as the country is engaged in an immensely important debate over how to teach students the United States’ full history — including its many triumphs but also the times it has fallen short of its lofty ideals, learned from those experiences and set itself on a better course.
We understand that these are nuanced topics to cover.
That’s why we firmly believe they should be framed in our public schools by educators — not ideologues pushing their own agendas.
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