Bob Shepherd is a regular reader and commenter who has been an assessment developer, a textbook writer and editor, and a teacher, among other things.
In the following post, he reviews the Hillsdale College “1776 Curriculum,” which took its name from Donald Trump’s short-lived “1776 Commission.”
He writes:
According to the Nashville Tennessean, Governor Bill Lee, a proponent of charter schools, is planning a partnership with fundamentalist Christian Hillsdale College to open 50 new charter schools in the state. These would use the Hillsdale 1776 Curriculum. Hillsdale bills itself as promoting Classical education.
I’ve just been reading through this stuff from Hillsdale, which is supposed to be a combination American History and Civics curriculum. It’s basically a guide to fundamentalist, nationalist indoctrination.
The first thing to notice about this curriculum, in comparison to existing K-12 American History and Civics programs, is that it is quite short. You can read through it in an afternoon. If your goal is to use history to indoctrinate students in a Christian fundamentalist nationalist mythology, it’s best to keep the discussion at the 50,000-foot level and deal mostly in abstract jingoism, with a few exempla thrown in. This is the sermon as textbook. If you get too much into the details, you are going to run into all kinds of messy events that don’t exemplify the mythology you are promulgating–the Mystic Massacre; the disenfranchisement at the dawn of the country of all but propertied white males; the Fort Pillow Massacre; slave auctions where trade in girls and young women was saved to the end of the day because such human property was particularly prized (guess why?) by good Christian white, male slaveowners; the Wounded Knee Massacre; a century of lynchings and Jim Crow and voter suppression and white citizens councils and the KKK and U.S. federal housing policy designed to keep black people from home ownership, the primary means by which ordinary people build generational wealth; the Eugenics and Nazi Bund movements in America; Trump furious that he couldn’t order to military to fight BLM protestors and the Border Patrol to shoot innocent asylum seekers; and so on ad nauseam.
One of the reasons why Fascism appeals to semiliterate mobs is that it makes everything simple. All complexity is burned away. And that’s just what the Hillsdale American Exceptionalism Curriculum does. (The successor to the 1930s pro-Nazi German American Bund called itself The America First Party, using the America First phrase that Dog-whistle Donald picked up for repetition at his rallies. Where was Leni Riefenstahl to film these?) This need to keep things simpler than they are is why, soon after seizing power, all Fascist governments establish complete control over publishing, the media, and schools and find pretexts for exterminating intellectuals and burning books and artwork.
The President of Hillsdale College, Larry Aarn, introduces his curriculum by saying that the purpose of education is to produce citizens, from the Latin civitas, or city, who can use language to distinguish the good from the bad, and that in history instruction, the way to do that is to concentrate on the lives of great persons. So, at the outset, everything is cleaved into “the good” on the one hand and “the bad” on the other (in other words, this is going to be a curriculum that deals in absolutes), and an avowed program of hero worship is advanced.
When you get into the heart of this comic book curriculum, you find that what its authors have done is choose a few “great” men and carefully excerpt from their writings short selections that support tenets of fundamentalist nationalism (manifest destiny, Christian religious belief, opposition to immigration, states’ rights, supply side trickle-down Laissez-faire economics, opposition to a big, bad federal government, etc.), and these become the subjects of lessons, the takeaways from which are rightwing doctrines and dogmas. So, the history of immigration becomes a few paragraphs from Alexander Hamilton saying that he is against it and accusing Jefferson, via quotations from Jefferson’s own writings, of having flip-flopped on the issue. (NB: Right-wingers only hate big government when it’s not their big government; if it’s Trump trying to bar people who practice a particular religion from the U.S., they are fine with that.)
So, this is all about replacing History and Civics education with comic book/Cub Scout-style mythologized, simplified indoctrination. (The Scouts were created by Robert Baden-Powell for the overtly stated purpose of producing young men willing to fight and die in British imperialist wars. It caught on in a big way in the United States.) Btw, for most of its history, Romans used the noun urbs to refer to the city and civis to refer to a citizen of an urbs. It was only late in Roman history, when Rome was falling apart, that a derivative of the word for citizen started being used to refer to a city itself. But if you are a proponent of education as propaganda, like Aarn, then you want to keep things simple: America good. Foreigners bad. Rome good. Barbarians bad. Classics education = learning to emulate being a true citizen of the Empire.
Doubtless, the Fascist government that the Republicans will put in place should they win both houses in the midterms and the presidency in 2024, will appropriate, in the manner presciently described by Orwell, traditional American concepts and iconography, distorted in a funhouse mirror and presented as a New, Stronger, Tougher, Truer American Exceptionalism.
Remember George Bush, Jr., aka Shrub, who ran on what he called a “kinder, gentler Conservativism” and then gave us 200,000+ Iraqi civilians dead in his illegal war, perpetrated on a false pretext and in violation of the UN Charter? In a similar manner, the Nazis appropriated ancient pictographs, used by cultures worldwide to represent the sun and lightning, and made of these abominations, and the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm proclaimed that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others [are].”
When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” goes the observation falsely attributed to Sinclair Lewis but very much in keeping with Lewis’s themes. Yup. Got that right.
He added an example:
Let me give one example of the general 1776 curriculum approach: The treatment of the disagreement about slavery between Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas is presented as one against absolute moral principles attributed to Lincoln) versus the “moral relativism” attributed to Douglas. This is completely anachronistic. Lincoln, of course, famously disliked slavery but asserted that the important thing was preserving the Union, with or without slavery. Sounds pretty relativistic, doesn’t it? The takeaway from the Hillsdale treatment of this topic is that those who do not support absolute principles (e.g., like those of Christian fundamentalists) are “moral relativists,” bad people who are akin to Stephen Douglas, with his support of slavery.
This is using American history classes to teach that there is an absolute moral order in the universe, established by God, that should be enforced by the state. Note that this is in keeping with the earlier teaching, in this curriculum, that the founding principles were about natural law deriving from God. But, of course, the philosophical Deism of many of the founders was a far cry from absolutist Christian fundamentalism and is, in itself, highly debatable.
And again and again, this is how the Hillsdale Curriculum works. It takes events in American history as occasions for advancing right-wing principles–economic libertarianism, nationalism, fundamentalist religious belief, states’ rights, restrictions on immigration, etc.
It is just endlessly amusing to me that after a solid year of screaming that liberals were “indoctrinating” children in public schools the ed reform “movement” is establishing and promoting a giant chain of charters that are EXPRESSLY and EXCUISIVELY conservative and Republican. They established a GOP charter chain and the whole echo chamber are selling the schools, lockstep, as usual.
Incoherent. There’s no consistency in this “movement” at all. Whatever is most politically beneficial in any given moment to promote privatization and bash existing public schools is what they’ll say, and what they say has absolutely no connection to what they do.
While they were furiously lobbying to expand vouchers with zero transparency and accountability they were on the other side of that too, screaming that public schools needed a whole new set of reporting regulations. Regulation for the schools they disfavor, public funding with no regulation for the schools they favor. Argue both, at the same time.
Here’s the one and only consistent principle in ed reform- privatized schools are GOOD and public schools are BAD. Once one understands that all the rest makes sense.
It is just endlessly amusing to me that after a solid year of screaming that liberals were “indoctrinating” children in public schools the ed reform “movement” is establishing and promoting a giant chain of charters that are EXPRESSLY and EXCUISIVELY conservative and Republican.
Nailed it, Chiara!
If public schools have any sense at all they’ll break from this “movement” and go their own way.
They shouldn’t accept endless ed reform regulatory schemes when ed reformers themselves lobby against any and all regulation of the schools they promote and prefer – charter and private schools.
Has this movement provided any benefit at all to the students who attend public schools in the 25 years they have utterly dominated policy? So why are public school students still stuck with them? Hire outside the echo chamber. You can’t do worse and you might do better.
Charter and private schools would never hire leaders who oppose charter and private schools. That wouldn’t benefit their students. So why are public schools hiring ed reformers? How does employing the members of this anti-public school echo chamber serve public school students? Do our students matter at all or are they now also just in service to ed reform’s ideological vision? The collateral damage that must be borne until they reach 100% eradication of public schools and the unicorns arrive and the rainbow appears?
What a raw deal for public school students.
Democratic politicians ignore the blatant fact that charter schools exist for the purpose of indoctrinating upcoming generations of voters into right-wing ideology. Democrats are funding their own end when they vote to fund charter schools — yet, Democrats continue to do so because they can’t let go of the campaign contributions they get from the charter school industry, just like drug addicts can’t stop using the junk that is killing them.
Pioneer Institute in MA released a report praising Hillsdale College. They attacked every other form of civics education in our state …I call it “revenge porn” because they are definitely trying to blast Tufts University off the map (and other forms of citizenship education such as the work of iCivics). I have no idea how the group can call themselves “National Association of Scholars” and they praise Hillsdale with this so-called “audit”; when will the National Association of Scholars remove Ginny Thomas from their board or ask her to resign? The “audit” praising Hillsdale curriculum is in PDF format and I don’t know how to enter a PDF here. Pioneer Institute put it out on the press releases the first week ; I wrote to Jamie Gass and Jim Stergios at Pioneer to tell them it is not an “audit” and it is not “Scholarly.” if you email me at jeanhaverhill@aol.com I can send you the email with the audit report. .
I knew Puoneer Institute was conservative (I have posted a few of Jamie Gass’s essays on literature here), but I didn’t know they were reactionary.
Thank you for writing to Jamie Gass and Jim Stergios.
I think there is reason to believe that Ginni Thomas’ goals for education derive from a religious sect that she joined subsequent to the religious cult she left.
“The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs,” posted at the Scielo site 3-3-2021 has research that is much broader than the title indicates. It is informative in understanding the situation in the U.S.
The Pioneer Institute posted 1-27-2021, “New Book offers roadmap to sustainability for Massachusetts Catholic schools”. A webinar to follow about Catholic schools was described. It was co-sponsored by Pioneer and Catholic schools. Patrick Wolf was an advertised panelist/speaker. He is with the University of Arkansas. Arkansas Catholic posted an article about him, with a title like, “A Catholic you should know.”
Patrick Wolf used to present himself as an independent nonpartisan reviewer of research on vouchers. He was hired as the “independent reviewer” of the Milwaukee voucher program; then he was hired by Congress as the “independent reviewer” of the DC voucher plan. Although he admitted that neither plan showed academic gains for students, he emphasized parent satisfaction and the high school graduation rate, while failing to note that the high school graduation rate was inflated by a high attrition rate. The attrition rate was ignored.
Since he moved to U of Arkansas “Department of Ed Reform” Walton-funded, the mask is off
Hoover posts the stuff that Patrick Wolf and Mike Petrilli write.
Paul E. Peterson’s views are also posted by Hoover.
In 2002, Peterson wrote “Catholic schools excel.” In 2017, he wrote, “Scalia’s Constitution: Essays on Law and Education.”
The gains made by conservative religious like Scalia who enabled Pat Buchanan’s right wing America, don’t surprise those who have warned the nation against an ugly and dangerous authoritarianism with men in charge who have the anti-culture, self absorption and predatory nature of Donald Trump.
Jonathan S. Tobin’s scathing rebuke of Buchanan’s book, “How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World,” (Jerusalem Post)
is worth reading.
Motives and political plans are better understood after reading the interview written by Ryan Girdusky, founder of the 1776 PAC, posted at Buchanan’s site
Jamie Gass in the Providence Journal, 8-13-2020, “Our Turn: High Court Ruling (Espinosa v. Montana) is a victory….”
Jim Stergios and Jamie Gass et al filed an amicus brief in that case; they have been saying for some time that taxpayer funds should be going to parochial schools.
The report released from Pioneer Institute is arrogant when they call it an audit of civics education; the inadequacy of Pioneer’s report on civics education is evident as it appears they relied on review of documents or other print materials to assess program quality that would conform with their preconceived opinions and extremely conservative ideology of what should be in the history/social studies curriculum ? It is not possible to produce valid, accurate, and usable assessments of the quality of programs (or courses) alone without also gathering other data through participant and faculty surveys, site visits, and other means that get at what programs actually do and how participants actually experience them. It has not been sufficient time to review the Massachusetts 2018 legislation primarily because the last 2 years have been experienced as a pandemic crisis and instructional modes of “hybrid ” nature have been the course delivery. Their abuse of professional teachers is really jingoistic in this case of their “audit of ” civics education and their attack on teacher preparation courses.
Jean-
Thank you for explaining “the how” of public school bashing.
In reference to the big picture, I see a scam, a travesty and blasphemy in the attack against the common good.
The scam is Americans forced to pay for religious indoctrination. The guilty are the allied wealthy libertarians and the politicized conservative religious. The travesty is that sect members, conservative and liberal, are steered to tribalism, which leads to labeling those who bring attention to the destruction of separation of church and state as anti-religious.
The political schemers use trumped up fears about attacks against Christianity to weaken the voices of democracies defenders.
The blasphemy is the schemers among the religious who take Christ’s name in vain while they champion colonialism.
Vouchers, in particular, are existential for Republicans. They know that they have lost the overwhelming majority of young people–future voters–on every issue–2SLGBTQX rights, religious fundamentalism, Medicare for all, etc. So, they need to kill public schools and replace these with as many private nationalist madrassas as they can.
“After about three decades of this orchestrated deception, citizens are beginning to push back. The charter glitz is fading; however, the feds are throwing more money at the charter industry in an attempt to restore the superficial attraction.” Bill Phillis, Education & Accountability
When I first read the title of this excellent blog post, I assumed it was satire–that the curriculum was a reactionary take on American history. I wasn’t far off the point. I love Bob’s characterization of it as “comic book history.” He unerringly captures the crassness and perversion of this “curriculum,” a caricature of the complexities of the human realm in the service of a reactionary and sinister agenda.
I followed Hillsdale College in my blog. I did not really understand the extent of their reach until my mother, a lifelong moderate Republican, died. I began receiving her mail. The amount of mail from Hillsdale I received made me cringe. Sue ________________________________
Hey Sue, For some reason I’ve been getting their mail for years. Needless to say it goes straight to the trash.
I urge all Ohio residents to look for ANY positive contribution to public schools or public school students any ed reform group or promoter has made.
Those elaborate, expensive testing schemes that change every year and the glossy “report card”? That’s the sum total contribution to public schools over 20 years. Doesn’t seem like a good return on your billion dollar investment.
That’s a multi-billion dollar test your child is taking.
Public schools can still break from this “movement”. They’ll still be subject to testing laws and reporting and the news speech laws and book bans, but they can just pass on the rest of the ed reform agenda and hire someone else. That’s permitted. There’s no requirement that we hire ed reformers. We could just hire people who value our students and schools.
I’m confused.
Shepherd says that the Hillsdale curriculum is an afternoon read, but the document he links to is over 2,400 pages long.
Also, I did a quick search of the pdf document and it mentions things like the “Ku Klux Klan” (completely spelled out, not in initial format) 9 times and the term “slavery” over 1,200 times. “Jim Crow” appears in 11 different places.
Are the comments based on some sort of shorter version of the full document?
OK. It will take a little more than an afternoon. I skimmed it over in an afternoon, stopping from time to time to read some bits more closely. But please bear in mind that this is meant to replace an entire K-12 social studies and civics curriculum and includes the tests and worksheets for the students. At the middle school and high school levels in a typical social studies program from one of the major educational publishers, each student text at each grade level would be 1,000+ pages. Each of those would have a companion teacher’s guide, also 1,000+ pages, an ancillary online materials, workbooks, books of handouts, tests, and much else, like companion readers, materials in various languages, etc. And the issue is not with whether these topics are mentioned but with how they are treated.
Your point is well taken, though, Mr. Innes. Diane picked this up from my blog, and I should have written this portion of the piece less hastily. Here is the revised version:
The first thing to notice about this curriculum, in comparison to existing K-12 American History and Civics programs, is that it is quite short. You can skim through it in an afternoon (stopping to read a lot of it closely). It covers social studies for Grades K-12 in 2,425 pages that include text materials, teacher’s notes, student handouts/worksheets, and tests. In comparison, a typical middle school or high-school text at each grade level will be about 1,000 pages, and this will be accompanied by a 1,000+-page teacher’s edition, online materials, books of handouts, worksheets, and tests, and various ancillary materials, such as fiction and nonfiction books. So, at most grade levels in K-12 social studies, the available teaching materials for one subject within social studies will be more than for ALL the grade levels in this curriculum.
Try looking up in this material The Mystic Massacre, the Fort Pillow Massacre, the Tulsa/Greenwood massacre, labor unions, Samuel Gompers, or labor union. Look for immigration and see how incredibly little you find.
Critics of Oklahoma Gov. Stitts demand he stop the use of his secular job to promote religion. Recently, two displays were removed from an Oklahoma library- one for Sexual Assault Awareness Month and one for a romance book club discussion (event cancelled).
Conservative religion has commandeered government policy and legislation to force authoritarianism on and to deny rights to Americans. There is one single centralized conservative religion with a substantial number of voters that receives protection while it destroys separation of church and state. Until that religion’s state conferences pay a price for their school choice legislation and their opposition to LGBTQ and women’s rights, expect the advance of men over women, conservative Christians over all others and, straights over gays. Conservative protestants like Gov. Stitts can’t achieve outcomes without assistance from a main, well-funded, well organized, politicized religious ally – one that enjoys a false image of liberalism among most Americans.
Read mainstream media articles about the origin of ramped up conservatism and draw your own conclusion about the protection that one of the two main conservative religions receives from writers and influencers. Then, consider how that harms the cause of American liberty and democracy. The religiosity of rural states, rich in electoral votes cast for the GOP, rely largely on one sect’s voters.
Whatever the Trump-MAGA Hillsdale fascists are alleging that Democrats (you know: liberals, progressives, moderates and even conservative Democrats) do is cover for what the US fascists are doing.
If those US fascists shout that libtards are molesting children and then eating them, then the fascists are molesting’s children and they have no evidence that any Democrats are doing the same thing.
If there are any children molesters and/or eaters in the US, they are registered Republicans that voted for Trump and will vote for him again in 2024 if he runs for president again. I wonder if alleged child molester Trump has eaten a child burger yet from his favorite fast food chain.
Don’t sink to their level, Lloyd.
“I wonder if alleged child molester Trump has eaten a child burger yet from his favorite fast food chain.”
Which fast food chain would serve such a Trump-delicacy?
I want to be quite clear about this. I have no objection to people having and expressing the readings of history instantiated in this curriculum What I do object to his making these the established, one-and-only curriculum of a chain of schools provided with state money, for they clearly represent a particular political vantagepoint. I’m with Milton on this. Let truth and falsehood grapple openly in the public sphere, and truth will prevail. So, I would not, emphatically would not, censor these materials. But I would absolutely insist upon opposing viewpoints being presented.
Consider this example. Suppose that a high-school history teacher were to tell his or her class that the states did not secede because of the issue of slavery but, rather, for economic reasons and reasons of states’ rights. Suppose that an American literature teacher in the same school were to respond to this by showing her students notices of secession from various states clearly indicating that they were seceding because of the issue of slavery. Isn’t that the kind of thing that you want in a free society? vigorous debate about such matters?
Instead of indoctrination in a particular POV?
I agree. But I’m concerned that the number of people who don’t think like this is increasing.
My sister-in-law hails from Midland, Texas. She insists that states’ rights were the reason we had a civil war. Slavery had nothing to do with it, according to what she learned in school.
Needless to say, we Yankees beg to differ.
I’m afraid the entire nation will go the Midland route if not stopped.
Send her this.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp
Yes, it was the right of states to make their own laws about slavery.
Several months ago, I posted a speech by Alexander Stephen’s, Vice President of the Confederacy, and he made clear that slavery was the central issue.
Eleanor,
Please ask her to read this speech:
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornerstone-speech
Please all her attention to these lines in defense of the Confederacy:
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.
In the conflict thus far, success has been on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.
As I have stated, the truth of this principle may be slow in development, as all truths are and ever have been, in the various branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by Galileo it was so with Adam Smith and his principles of political economy. It was so with Harvey, and his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is stated that not a single one of the medical profession, living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him, admitted them. Now, they are universally acknowledged. May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made “one star to differ from another star in glory.” The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders “is become the chief of the corner” the real “corner-stone” in our new edifice. I have been asked, what of the future? It has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many they may be against us, when we stand upon the eternal principles of truth, if we are true to ourselves and the principles for which we contend, we are obliged to, and must triumph.
“So, I would not, emphatically would not, censor these materials. ”
I would. Nobody should have the right to miseducate and indoctrinate other people’s kids in an organized setting.
There is no such thing as “the truth will come out in a public debate”. Truth may come out of a speaker’s mouth, but there is no telling if and how it gets in listeners’ brain. Everything is up for interpretation by the audience, truth-hood or falsehood.
I entirely agree that there is not a right to miseducate and indoctrinate in an organized setting. For entire schools to be organized in this way and funded by taxpayer money is utterly objectionable. We should have debate within schools, and there should be room within schools for academic freedom, though not freedom to misinform.
What is being proposed by the governor in Tennesse is that taxpayer money be used to fund charter schools that would indoctrinate students in this manner, using these materials. I agree with you entirely, Mr. Wierdl, that that is unacceptable.
Unfortunately, our republican governor in MA has signed on with the DeSantis and the other republican governors in their preference for charter schools being fostered without appropriate regulations. . There have been governors acting in this debate such as former governor who wanted all the Zinn text materials removed from the schools. (he went on to a more influential position in University.) We have had several republican governors in MA (i.e., Romney) etc who have pushed this consistently over the years but it seems to be much worse now that the extremists have control of the microphones. Elizabeth Warren spoke out this weekend and Robert Hubbell posted his newsletter about the “traitors” in the Republican Party who are extreme in pushing their own ideology. We experienced “special schools” that used taxpayer funds for their own corruption, fraud, and bank accounts. Only two people were fined; the CEO has the highest teacher pension in the entire state. The legislature in MA said they had closed up those loopholes but this charter promotion without accountability (and regulations that are monitored through oversight) is going to again try to defeat the public schools. Even the “gifted” programs in our state have fallen into the “sales” and marketing trap. When I post a cautionary article from Peter Greene or others, they block me. Because, “it’s all about the market” and they have parents convinced. Caveat Emptor
This is an excellent article. I’m glad to see more folks taking notice of Hillsdale’s 1776 curriculum. I’m working my way through the materials for high school students and have found it very disappointing. The entire high school history curriculum is 428 pages. A lot of that is reproductions of primary source materials. It is also clearly incomplete. There are just two units:
1 – The American Founding:1763 – 1789
2 – The American Civil War: 1848 – 1877
The companion text, Land of Hope by Wilfred McClay, ostensibly covers the foundation of the British colonies in North America to the Trump Administration. While it is meant to be a complete textbook, the book is unusually short with very shallow coverage in places. The book is only 460 pages of nearly uninterrupted text; student activities and other learning aids are not included in the main book. As a point of comparison, consider the lengths of other high school American history textbooks favored by conservatives.
A History of the United States by Boorstin and Kelley (Prentice Hall / 2002) is 1036 pages.
United States History by Bob Jones University (BJU Press / 2018) is 712 pages.
United States History: Heritage of Freedom (Abeka Books / 2009) is 572 pages.
Land of Hope and Promise (Catholic Textbook Project / 2015) is 883 pages.
McClay’s writing is engaging, but his historical perspective is really bizarre in places. For example, in some sections, historical events are described as an inescapable fate. “The Turner revolt had forcefully given the lie to wistful myths about the harmonious benevolence of slavery. But it did so at a moment when the South’s dependency on its peculiar institution was too great and too thoroughly entrenched to be abandoned – and at the very moment when the voices of northern abolitionists, although few in number and limited in influence, had suddenly become loud and threatening.” (page 148)
Then there are some very striking omissions. The chapter on reconstruction ends like this: “One thing is certain. The deeply unsatisfying episode of Reconstruction left too much undone and a great many wounds unhealed. That work, and those wounds, would remain compelling tasks for other generations.” (page 204) This makes it sound like reconstruction came to a neat end, and Black Americans meekly accepted oppression for generations. The book completely skips the landmark supreme court case Plessey v Ferguson and the introduction of Jim Crow laws. Racial segregation is mentioned in passing in the chapter on the progressive era (pages 248 and 258) and its end is described in the chapter on the 1960’s (page 373).
There’s also a bit too much artistic license taken at times. “It was a poignant scene, dignified and restrained and sad, as when a terrible storm that had raged and blown has finally exhausted itself, leaving behind a strange and reverent calm, purged of all passion. The two men had known one another in the Mexican War and had not seen one another in nearly twenty years. Lee arrived first, wearing his elegant dress uniform, soon to be joined by Grant clad in a mud-spattered sack coat, his trousers tucked into his muddy boots. They showed one another a deep and respectful courtesy, and Grant generously allowed Lee’s officers to keep their sidearms and the men to keep their horses and take them home for the spring planting.” (page 189)
While I believe that a talented history teacher could make up for the deficiencies of the 1776 curriculum and its supporting textbook, it would certainly be an uphill battle.
Thanks for your review.
Somehow I got on Hillsdale’s mailing list & I’ve been receiving their newsletters even before I knew what they were all about. But as I was curious to see where they were heading, I kept reading them, thinking they were just some fringe group trying to gain membership. But, as I read more, this article is absolutely right about their intentions. If we all don’t continually try to educate & inform the uneducated, simple-minded masses about the history of how Fascism gained hold in countries like Germany, Italy, Spain & Portugal in the early-mid 20th century, and later on in countries like Chile, Argentina & other Latin American countries in the 70’s-80’s, then we are absolutely condemned to repeat history & suffer the same consequences as did all of those other countries.
Hold onto your hat. It’s coming here.
I would hope that those who are independent thinkers or those who like to read historical fiction/nonfiction will eventually realize that their core beliefs are bogus. I’m still discovering facts that were distorted by my childhood education either because I like to read or from documentaries or even historical fiction. When I research these topics, I am surprised at the depth of knowledge I lack (even though I think I had a good education).
Right now it’s not just what we aren’t teaching our children, but the fact that what is being taught is incomplete, nonsensical, or just plain untruths (bald faced lies).
One (of many) dangers is that these textbooks will be looked at by future generations who will assume that they contain “the right stuff”.
I suspect that it will be the general experience of people educated in nationalist, fundamentalist Christian madrassas, when they go out into the real world, to find that others are shocked by what they believe. Many years ago, when I was a freshman at Indiana University, I was in a large auditorium in an introductory genetics class. The professor was talking about the 3.8 billion years of evolution of life on the planet and how this was all driven by genetics, and a young woman raised her hand and asked, “But where do Adam and Eve fit into all this”? I felt really sorry for her. She hadn’t been educated. She had experienced child abuse that was called education.
the “reactionary” and DeSantis credo have gained in Massachusetts.
Tom Meyers: Martin West has serious conflicts of interest. Those people trained in law like Eastman need to realize governing is not lawyering. (cf. Claremont Institute)
They have been writing in “law review” about the public schools for decades. As with Eastman, many are reactionary (not conservative). Pioneer Institute has hired a bevy of lawyers to write amicus briefs.
https://www.educationnext.org/new-biden-rules-would-slow-charter-growth-parents-governors-register-objections/
Martin West wrote this article ; he is the famous guy who brought the “measures of Grit” to the urban poverty school students; he also has edited a book with the famous John Eastman (yes the lawyer feeding the insurrection) as an author of one of the chapters. Please determine what is “reactionary” about the stance they take and notify your reps and senators.
The DeSantis credo: Charlie Baker goes along with them…. 17 Republican governors wrote to education secretary Miguel Cardona to object to the proposed changes on charter school accountability. “
Happily, I don’t see Democratic governors rushing in to block the regulations for federal charter money.
It seems common sense that federal money should not go into the bank accounts of entrepreneurs and grifters.
Reblogged this on dean ramser.
A tangentially related note: The brilliant cognitive scientist Dan Willingham, whom I was privileged to meet when I was living in Charlottesville, VA, points out one of his “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” columns that people retain things when these are parts of stories and involve causal connections. See
https://www.aft.org/periodical/american-educator/summer-2004/ask-cognitive-scientist
He then points out that despite the fact that this is the case, most history textbooks do not take a storytelling approach. Willingham is right about this. TELL THEM A STORY.
But try your darnedest to make it a true story, even if that complicates it.
Here is what I wrote about humans as a story-telling species back in 2016. https://resseger.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/story-telling-species/
Well said, Sheila!
Thanks, Bob, yet another reason to feel good about living in TN.
Let’s put a face on the story: the president of Hillsdale College
It’s hinted that he an Oxford educated man. I dunno.
https://www.hillsdale.edu/staff/larry-p-arnn/
Bill Phillis posted this today on Education & Accountability (Ohio). The MA governor signed on with DeSantis…. et al. https://files.constantcontact.com/26d1b400301/154712de-07b3-4637-a064-2b186aff306a.pdf
So sorry to see this.
p.s. the fraud that siphoned off between$10 million and $30 million from special education programs in MA was a scheme of the brother-in-law of the then republican governor now deceased.. The charter schemes are continuing even though the legislature assured that they had closed these loopholes. please read Robert Hubbell today commenting on Elizabeth Warren’s statement about “traitors” and where they reside in the politics and call them out.
!!!!!!
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/kevin-mccarthy-is-a-liar-and-a-traitor?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDQ4ODIzMSwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTI4MDY0NTEsIl8iOiJBUzJGSSIsImlhdCI6MTY1MDg5NTY1MSwiZXhwIjoxNjUwODk5MjUxLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjcxMzU4Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.kwU2XYch-RCUDBmFYsYO2ogsgx5Ze5XqmnP-wfC31QU&s=r