LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Complaining about what he called indoctrination in schools, former President Donald Trump created a commission that promoted “patriotic” education and played down America’s role in slavery. But though he’s out of the White House and the commission has disbanded, the cause hasn’t died. Lawmakers in Republican states are now pressing for similar action.
Proposals in Arkansas, Iowa and Mississippi would prohibit schools from using a New York Times project that focused on slavery’s legacy. Georgia colleges and universities have been quizzed about whether they’re teaching about white privilege or oppression. And GOP governors are backing overhauls of civic education that mirror Trump’s abandoned initiatives.
Republicans behind the latest moves say they’re countering left-wing attempts in K-12 schools and higher education to indoctrinate rather than teach students. Teachers, civil rights leaders and policymakers are fighting back, saying students will suffer if states brush over crucial parts of the nation’s history.
“The idea of simply saying you’re not going to use certain materials because you don’t like what they’re going to say without input from professionals makes no sense,” said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association.
Statehouse fights over what’s taught in public schools are nothing new. Arkansas lost a court battle over a 1981 law that required the teaching of creationism in its classrooms, and in recent years conservatives have waged battles over how evolution, climate change and other topics are taught. But the latest efforts show just how much Trump’s rhetoric on race continues to resonate in the mostly rural and white states he won.