President Donald Trump accused schools of indoctrinating students with left-wing ideology and announced a commission that would promote a “pro-American curriculum,” The Washington Post reports.
Trump’s announcement was based on his complaints about the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which looked at how slavery continues to be linked to countless societal inequalities today.
Trump announced that he would form a panel called the “1776 Commission,” arguing that the 1619 Project wrongly teaches that the US was founded on “oppression, not freedom.”
Trump claimed that the “left-wing rioting and mayhem” are “the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. It’s gone on far too long.”
Feds have no authority over school curriculum:
The federal government has no authority over school curriculums but Trump vowed that the 1776 Commission would promote a “pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history.”
“Patriotic moms and dads are going to demand that their children are no longer fed hateful lies about this country,” he said. “American parents are not going to accept indoctrination in our schools, cancel culture at work or the repression of traditional faith, culture and values in the public square. Not anymore.”
Experts say Trump is “wildly out of touch”:
Former Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Post that Trump “has no ability to do that. He’s a fraud.”
“I am not teaching my students to hate America,” Louisiana teacher Chris Dier told the outlet. “We are teaching our students to embrace our country, even the things that are negative. We’re choosing not to ignore the ghosts of our country’s past.”
“I don’t think that there’s anything that’s so perfect or so evil that we can exclusively love or hate it, especially with something as complex as a country with a history that’s so convoluted,” 16-year-old New Jersey student Emma Chan added. “You can love a country and feel it’s worth defending and still criticize it. I think pressing for change is a patriotic things to do.”
