North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction plans to adopt a high school course to teach the founding principles of American government, which was developed by an institute funded by the notorious Koch Brothers.
State high school social studies teachers would be encouraged to use curriculum materials prepared by an institute funded by the conservative Koch family, under a proposal the Department of Public Instruction presented Wednesday.
The Bill of Rights Institute, based in Virginia, had a $100,000, sole-source contract with the state to help develop materials for teachers to use in a course on founding principles that the state requires students to take. The institute was founded in 1999 and receives grants from David H. Koch, the Charles Koch Foundation, and the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation, according to a website on Koch family philanthropies.
The state Department of Public Instruction decision to “highly recommend” that school districts use the Bill of Rights Institute material comes as the state is embroiled in a controversy over teaching history – whether schools have students study the founding principles as the law requires, whether AP U.S. History meets those requirements and whether the college-level course developed by the College Board has a liberal bias.
The 390-page founding principles curriculum includes readings, activities, questions students should discuss and references to online resources for the 10 principles described in a 2011 law inspired by proposed legislation promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group backed by major corporations….
June Atkinson, state school superintendent and a Democrat, said the state looked for groups that could help write the founding principles curriculum but found only the Bill of Rights Institute. The institute did not return phone calls.
The institute collaborated with state educators, Atkinson said, and they requested feedback from teachers, who reviewed the work and suggested changes.
“It wasn’t a carte blanche, we’ll take what you have,” she said. “We wanted a balanced approach.”
But history teachers said in interviews Wednesday that they already have a wealth of resources available for teaching the founding principles. Some said it was not appropriate for a Koch-connected group to write public school course materials, and none knew that the state had hired the institute to develop a curriculum.
Charles and David Koch are active in conservative politics and finance an expansive political network.
People whose “principal concern is profit-making” should not develop curriculum, said Bryan Proffitt, a history teacher at Hillside High School in Durham. Curriculum should be developed “in a democratic fashion” by people closest to the classroom, he said.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/12/03/4374397_state-education-department-used.html?sp=/99/100/&rh=1#storylink=cp.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I worked at DPI and reviewed the lessons. This course already exists and has existed for years. The article is misleading. The state is not adopting a course; it contracted with the BoRI to develop ten ‘units’ to teach some of the standards in the American History One: The Founding Principles course and in the Civics and Economics course. The teachers do not have to use these at all, because NC is a local control state, and the state cannot mandate curriculum. The review process for the lessons involved both state level specialists and classroom teachers, and the developers at the BoRI were very responsive to our feedback, revising the lessons to address concerns over bias. Are they great? No. But they are ok. I wouldn’t use all of them myself, but I might use one or two to teach some of the standards, perhaps adapting them as I saw fit.
I just want to emphasize that the state is not planning to adopt a course. The course, American History One: The Founding Principles, has been in place and taught since 2011.
Of course, the civics course has been around for nearly a century. But will the curriculum be supplied by a Koch-Brothers’ institute?
It is for the American History One: The Founding Principles course, mainly, not the Civics and Econ course. The state of North Carolina supplies no curriculum for any course because it is a local control state and cannot mandate the curriculum for any course. It can suggest resources, such as these lessons, but it cannot mandate their use. At the same time, the state assessment is aligned with the standards, not with these lessons. And the lessons do not cover all of the standards with the conceptual depth that is expected from the standards. The BoRI institute is just one resource offered to teachers. The state also offers materials from the Center for Civvic Education, the federal government, KidsvotingUSA, the Library of Congress, LEARN NC, the National Humanities Center, We the People, and others.
And professional development done by the social studies section at NCDPI centers around developing your own curriculum and units using non-textbook sources. The best units are teacher developed units, and that is what the section stresses.
This is analogous to have the clean coal industry write all of curriculum materials on energy.
June Atkinson, state school superintendent and a Democrat, said the state looked for groups that could help write the founding principles curriculum but found only the Bill of Rights Institute. The institute did not return phone calls.”
Fire the state school superintendent for incompetence. Find out who else was involved in this decision to totally by-pass teachers and aggrandize the views of the heirs to the radicalism of the John Birch society under the cover of “seeking balance.”
Shall we also have a “balanced” view of the role of the KKK in North Carolina? A little lynching here, a little lynching there, as long as the writers have BIG money and an “Institute” to forward propaganda, then “balance” and credibility is assured?
Hers is an elected position.
in other words, “firing” is not the right word in this case
“The institute collaborated with state educators, Atkinson said, and they requested feedback from teachers, who reviewed the work and suggested changes.”
Hhhmmm! Where have we heard about that kind of “collaboration” before????
Part of the same post. Look for the same curriculum infecting your state with the help of politicians who rely on ALEC.
” If you’re wondering whether the source of such a poorly conceived law is ALEC, the answer is (SURPRISE!) yes.
The 390-page founding principles curriculum includes readings, activities, questions students should discuss and references to online resources for the 10 principles described in a 2011 law inspired by proposed legislation promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group backed by major corporations.
Yeah, that’s right. Sleazy, self-interested politicians passed a law handed to them by ALEC that results in paying $100,000 to the Koch brothers for the privilege of indoctrinating our kids.”
OMG The Koch Brothers are involved it MUST be bad. “BAZINGA!”
Here’s the Bill of Rights Institute website:
http://billofrightsinstitute.org/about-us/
There is nothing sinister about any of their resources.
If the issue is how the contract was awarded, then investigate why no one else responded to the request (it was only a $100,000.00 offer, which is not much.)
If “highly recommended” has a nefarious meaning, then that’s the NC School Department of Educations problem. I have used a lot of their (BORI) resources (they’re free online) to supplement my own teaching, especially when designing “Read Like a Historian” lessons (See Stanford SHEG: http://sheg.stanford.edu/rlh).
BTW, the North Carolina DE has not yet awarded the contract to develop these “free” materials.
Maybe there is time to get George Soros to contribute some money to BORI to counteract the “evil” intentions of the Koch brothers. (BAZINGA!)
The National Council for the Social Studies has included a BoRI lesson in their most recent bulletin on using the C3 Framework to explore inquiry in social studies. And it is a decent lesson.
Jim,
Compare the amount Soros spends with the amount the Koch’s spend. Identify whether the funder’s objective is profit in his pocket. A donation to the Audubon Society is not the same as a campaign donation to a politician who will award a financially beneficial contract, after elected.
My guess is, that history through the Koch’s eyes is pretty sanitized. Is that right?
“The (Un)Common Core”
Koch and Gates
Gates and Kochs
Core and Rights
(Un)Common blokes
“People whose “principal concern is profit-making” should not develop curriculum, said Bryan Proffitt, a history teacher at Hillside High School in Durham. Curriculum should be developed “in a democratic fashion” by people closest to the classroom, he said.
And people whose “principal concern is profit-making” should not develop educational standards.. Standards should be developed “in a democratic fashion” by people closest to the classroom”
The irony of having public schools use all or part of a course on “founding principles” (of a representative democracy) developed by an organization called “The Bill or Rights Institute” sponsored by one of the wealthiest individuals in the world is just too much.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Concern that ANY strongly conservative or liberal biased group, for profit or not, write education curriculum needs to go both ways. My understanding is that planned parenthood has its hands in the sex education curriculum that many public schools now use as part of Health instruction. That is one group that I prefer NOT have a say in the teaching of sex ed for my school aged child.
Rhetorically, why not Planned Parenthood?
Independent investigations about the Koch’s are very damning.
The two entities are in no way similar, just like live traps that clamp around an animal’s leg are not like an apple.
Linda, my analogy of planned parenthood writing sex ed curriculum is not like comparing “apples and animal traps” where the Koch brothers writing history curricula are concerned. Several times in the article there is reference to the Koch brothers being “conservative”. I think the same should apply to a strongly left leaning groups like planned parenthood. I agree that PP is a non profit but just like the Koch Bros who are for profit, they should not have influence in curriculum.
Sorry to say but I no longer trust most of what is issued from the New York State Education Department -and that includes the whole C-3 Framework. If you wonder why, just scroll back through this blog for a few months.
And, what’s with that rainbow “inquiry arc” that’s part of the C-3 Framework? It does look so……nice. https://www.engageny.org/resource/new-york-state-k-12-social-studies-field-guide
I’m not going to pretend that I know what the hell that arc is really talking about. I guess I’m just uneducated since this rainbow thingy was developed by, like, a million experts and it’s oh-so RIGRUS (there’s that word again! Please stop using it, all you “experts”….it’s hackneyed and just signals to me that you can’t think for yourselves. Believe me, if NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is using the word “rigorous” its days of meaning anything useful are DONE.)
Strangely enough the curriculum rainbow on the NYS Education Department website doesn’t show the pot of gold it’s leading to…WHAT’S WITH THAT? You know, that pot of gold paid for by taxpayers and being offered up to Cuomo’s Wall Street cronies and corporate privateers.
Years ago the New York State social studies curriculum had this wacky looking flow chart that made absolutely no sense to me back then either. It was so 1970s, like something from keypunching class. I guess this rainbow is the 21st century effort to look hip and up-to-date. Meanwhile it’s the same old “pretend that this all makes sense then go in your classroom and really teach”.
Diane, I did try to cut and paste the aforementioned curriculum rainbow on this blog but it just wouldn’t stick. Maybe that’s me. I’m thinking of developing my own “arc” ….a design to show exactly how things are really working in New York State politics, with arrows, and colors and all kinds of fancy stuff leading from the powerful, rich people really in control though Andrew Cuomo’s almost empty head past the sleeping Board of Regents then cascading down to cover our schools like a corrosive blob of molasses. That’s how I picture it.
I guess there are people who want New York State teachers to be facing the same sort of conditions our colleagues in North Carolina are forced to deal with. It’s a blob that’s spreading across the nation.
Hang in there fellow public school educators! We are all in this together.
There are a lot of words that have been run into the ground within Ed reform, like “rigorous.”
When you hear the word “rigorous,” think “rigor mortis”
John, just curious. What would you say to a New Yorker who says that “liberals” are just annoyed that big money has gotten behind many Ed reforms in order to fix a broken system that students AND teachers are stuck in. This is what I am told by NY folks who work in finance. (Personally, I would say that if folks have not been worked in a classroom for at least five years, then they probably aren’t the best candidates for developing policy for public schools (curriculum or not), and I can see how the resentment issue (regarding the flow of money) comes up, but I think if both “liberals” and those with mighty wealth would cool their wild descriptions of each other, the conversation would be easier to have. ??? Just curious what you hear and how you respond to statements about wealth in regards to public Ed.)
New York teachers I know have discovered the importance of a good union, so I’m told. I haven’t heard any of them mention being stuck in a broken system that they wish big money would come in and fix. But the finance and business people I hear from are pretty sure that’s the case.
Ultimately, where are we headed and how does NC’s contract with this Koch project fit into that?
cx: have not worked
Thanks for the comments, Joanna. At this point the term “liberal” to me seems to have been usurped by people who are not liberal…..and want to use it as a club….a political weapon.
The irony is, there are so many good things that liberals have been responsible for in this country stretching back to the 1960s and beyond. Yet some people seem to be running from that label now. And, of course, lots of us hate to be labelled to begin with.
I think you’re correct in saying that there’s always room to cool things down and open up a dialogue. Absolutely. Some of the people trying to takeover public schools, though, have proven themselves to be really SNEAKY…… I mean, Cuomo is a snake. I’d certainly not let my guard down.
Like most average citizens, I have little to no contact with the “1%” and even the “10%” in this country. I would certainly get in my car and pay for gas and travel to talk with some of them if “they” (fill in a name or two: _________, _________) ever made the effort to talk with me…..or, much more importantly, to listen to the parents and children being affected by this testing lunacy. That’s a conversation I’d really like to hear.
Speaking of driving….I have to go see if I can get my car down this icy road…..or not. Life in Upstate New York. Wherever you are, hope it is warmer. Take care
Joanna, the puzzle of our times is why the folks in the financial sector think they know how to “fix” public education. What is their base of knowledge or expertise? Do they think schools should operate like the stock market or like a corporation? Apparently so. It is the old story that when people get very rich, they think they are very smart–about everything.
NC state government is getting ever dumber . . . . .
And the Koch brothers and others like them are our new education policy makers. They don’t even have to get elected. They simply bribe those who are.
Take a look at our new curriculum writers; they know so little, yet manage to do so much:
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2012/10/cartoon-meet-your-education-policy.html
They will take ANYONE in any condition who is like minded and incentivize them to write policy and curriculum. Next thing you know, they will take the anti-public, working class hating Leona and Harry Helmsley, dig them up, and prop them up at their next board meeting.
I would like to know what “encouraged to use” means, exactly.
Questions for Steve Masy and perhaps Jim Realini: You worked at DPI in what state? North Carolina?
Were teacher evaluators paid or was the work volunteer for the institute?
One of the main concerns for N.C. residents, taxpayers and parents is the $100,000 spent or to be spent on the Bill of Rights Institute when existing resources are available.
You list some other resources available. Do you know whether any of them are getting state funding currently?
Can you clarify that this Bill of Rights Institute curriculum is a contract that’s already signed or one that is still to be accepted?
Do you have a link to a request for proposals? Do you know how it was circulated?
Jim Realini’s comment indicates that no contract has been signed yet.
Does that mean the 390-page document provided by the institute is not in final form?
Good points. Good questions.