Education History Koch Brothers

The Conservative War on History Continues

The conservative war on history, which recently reared its head in Texas where state officials voted to drop the Advanced Placement U.S. History curriculum because it was “anti-American,” has spread to the Denver, Colorado area where the local school board is following suit.

The Jefferson County school board appears to be going a step further, however, by dropping negative events in our history and discouraging civil disobedience.

via ThinkProgress

According to the curricula proposal, students would only be taught lessons depicting American heritage in a positive light, and effectively ban any material that could lead to dissent. Under the proposed policy, a review committee would regularly read instructional text and course syllabi to ensure that educational materials do not stray from subject matter that complies with the policy.

Admittedly to my surprise, students reacted to the proposed changes by walking out in protest, with one local senior saying that protest is part of what “America was built off of.”

These students are clearly a brighter bunch than my fellow students were at my high school. My fellow students in the late 1990s would have shrugged their shoulders and asked ‘who cares?’ This gives me hope that we may not be doomed after all, but I digress.

The New York Times has more details.

The teachers’ union, whose members forced two high schools to close Friday by calling in sick, has been in continual conflict with the new board; the board, in turn, has drawn praise from Americans for Prosperity-Colorado, a conservative group affiliated with the Koch family foundations. In April, Dustin Zvonek, the group’s director, wrote in an op-ed that the board’s election was an “exciting and hopeful moment for the county and the school district.” [...]

Almost from the outset, the three conservative newcomers to the five-person board clashed with the two others, and a steady stream of 3-to-2 votes came to represent the sharp divisions on the board and in the community. [...]

“We’ve had conservatives on our board before,” said Michele Patterson, the president of the district’s parent-teacher association. “They were wonderful. These people, they’re not interested in balance or compromise. They have a political agenda that they’re intent on pushing through.”

I keep coming back to the same question.

Why do conservatives want to emulate the educational practices of nations they would call enemies by censoring negative events in our history? Isn’t that what they accuse liberals of doing? Don’t they trot out boogeymen like George Soros and Saul Alinksy and accuse liberals of rewriting history? Don’t they accuse liberals of brainwashing and indoctrinating our children?

In multiple locations across the country, conservative school board members are doing exactly that and it may be the most revolting conservative cause ce le bre today.