OPINION:
America is in the middle of several man-made, policy-driven crises: chaos at the southern border, emboldened adversaries, rampant inflation and unprecedented rates of depression among our young people, just to name a few. One crisis that does not get nearly as much attention is the pitiful state of civics education in this country.
Let’s start with the facts. This past year, the average American eighth grade history scores dropped to their lowest levels in a generation: Only 13% of students were “proficient” or better. A whopping 40% were below basic. Another man-made crisis — the pandemic lockdowns — is partially to blame, just as it is for falling math and reading scores.
But the primary cause is the “woke” indoctrination that has supplanted real history and civics education in the country’s public school systems.
For example, the Manhattan Institute found that 90% of high school students have been exposed to at least one core concept of critical race theory — an ideology that has nothing to do with real education — from a teacher or other adult as school; and “93% had been taught a core tenet of critical social justice (CSJ), a combination of CRT and radical gender ideology,” which is also an ideology and therefore has nothing to do with actual education.
According to the Pew Research Center, over one-third of the nation’s public school systems tout their devotion to yet another ideology — diversity, equity and inclusion — in their mission statements. At the same time, the curriculum based on the largely debunked and scholastically laughable “1619 Project” from The New York Times is still being used in schools across the country.
Meanwhile, fewer than half of Americans can name all three branches of government, and a quarter cannot name one branch.
It should therefore come as no surprise that parents want an alternative based on real history and on the self-evident truths that informed and inspired our country’s founding. Parents in Oklahoma have repeatedly told me they want a greater emphasis on teaching America’s real history and on fostering a proper understanding of our founding.
That’s why my state is offering an alternative to parents and students that teaches American history, not the anti-American ideology taught in so many schools.
We announced a new partnership between Prager University and the Oklahoma State Department of Education to bring “PragerU Kids” into Oklahoma classrooms. The goal is to give more resources to content that elevates students’ ethical values and intellects and that addresses American history honestly — by allowing (not requiring) educators to use PragerU Kids materials to supplement their materials for teaching things like civics and American history.
In their objections, the example the “woke” critics of PragerU most often cite is slavery. PragerU materials unambiguously acknowledge the stain of slavery, but they also emphasize a critical truth that no “woke” educator teaches: Slavery was universal. Therefore, what set America and the West apart was not the existence of slavery, but the abolition of slavery. Only the West, beginning with England and spreading to America, did that.
This promotes appropriate pride in rather than inappropriate contempt for America.
“This expansion of our available resources will help ensure high-quality materials rich in American history and values will be available to our teachers and students,” I explained at the time. “We will work together to find ways for PragerU to create content that will enrich the education of Oklahoma students.”
None of these resources are required for use in the classroom. Educators are free to incorporate them, or not, into their curricula — with or without direction from their school board. Nor does this cost the hardworking taxpayers of Oklahoma one cent, thanks to PragerU’s generosity and its mission.
Yet story after story in the corporate media desperately tried to frame this partnership as some kind of attempt at political indoctrination. Coming from the “woke,” this is as perfect an example of gaslighting as one can imagine.
The fact is that the education cartel of politicians, bureaucrats and union bosses is not just failing American students; rather, it is actively brainwashing many of them with ideas that are contrary to truth, contrary to parents’ values, and contrary to the ideals that made America, with all its acknowledged flaws, the greatest country in history. And that cartel wants to keep it that way.
We don’t. Therefore, parents, educators and policymakers need to think outside the box and find innovative ways to improve the quality of our education curricula.
Partnering with PragerU, which features videos presented by professors at, among other universities, Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Princeton, and the University of California, Berkeley — something that those who defame PragerU never mention — is just one step in that direction. We intend it to be one of many to come.
Test it for yourself. Visit prageru.com and watch any of the PragerU Kids videos and all other videos. Do you see a problem with anything there in our public school classrooms?
• Ryan Walters is Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction. Dennis Prager is an American conservative radio talk show host and writer. He is the host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show The Dennis Prager Show. In 2009, he co-founded PragerU, which primarily creates five-minute videos from an American conservative perspective, among other content.
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