Editor's note: This piece was co-authored by Jason Dudash.
Education has long been considered the bedrock of American exceptionalism. The founding fathers rightly understood that “a popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it,” would reduce the great American experiment to “a Prologue…a Farce or a Tragedy.”
Their vision for public education far exceeded mathematics and literature, but also sought to equip students with an enthusiasm for American values, a nuanced understanding of political and social issues, and most of all, the ability to vote wisely, resist tyranny, and protect the rights that those before them paid such a high price to attain.
For this reason, in the aftermath of the American Revolution, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others committed to establishing the publicly funded school system necessary to develop an educated citizenry.
Years later in 1857, a handful of educators gathered in Philadelphia to establish the National Education Association (NEA), a first of its kind national teachers union with like-minded goals of the founding fathers.
NEA’s early devotion to the improvement of American education ensured teachers were adequately paid and maintained safe teaching conditions. It was union members who led the noble charge to educate emancipated slaves and native Americans, fought against misguided child labor laws, and championed women’s suffrage.
Sadly, today, what public education and teacher unions have become are far from what our founding fathers and early American educators intended.
They have tragically transformed our public schools from proponents of American exceptionalism to champions of American destructionism.
Instead of establishing platforms that champion teaching our children the basic academic principles they need to prepare for college, succeed in the workplace, and positively contribute to society, these unions and their state and local counterparts are advocating for platforms like gender transition for children, Palestinian violence against Israel, the 1619 Project, Defund the Police, and Medicare for all. These aren’t just stated positions, they are guidebooks, official policies, and programs to indoctrinate school children into radical leftist ideology.
This summer, the Portland Association of Teachers published a guidebook “Teaching and Organizing for Palestine Within Portland Public Schools,” which offered pre-K resources glorifying the Palestinian intifada and curriculum urging students to pray to Allah.
Last year, the Colorado Education Association adopted an anti-capitalist polemic at their annual delegate assembly, proclaiming “that capitalism inherently exploits children, public schools, land, labor, and resources. Capitalism is in opposition to fully addressing systemic racism (the school to prison pipeline), climate change, patriarchy (gender and LGBTQ disparities), education inequality, and income inequality.”
Not to be outdone, Oregon’s largest teachers union regularly hosts monthly meetings for the Democratic Socialists of America at their office headquarters in Salem.
Furthermore, at this year’s NEA and AFT conventions, while glossing over practical solutions to serious issues facing American educators, union dues were instead committed to overhauling the U.S. Supreme Court, preserving “LGBTQIA+ affirming…curriculum,” and backing Vice President Kamala Harris to defeat “Donald Trump and the ultra-right MAGA faction.”
As teacher union resources continue to fund social indoctrination over education, our children’s academic education is suffering.
Areas where teacher union influence is the strongest are also where student outcomes are the worst. In Baltimore, Maryland, zero students in 40% of high schools tested proficient in math. In Chicago, just 19% of third through eighth graders could solve math problems at grade level. In Los Angeles, seven in ten of all students failed to meet education standards set by the state.
And in New York, fourth and eighth grade math proficiency scores plummeted at a rate double that of the national average, despite the Empire State’s record setting $30,723 price tag per student.
As student success crumbles, the belief and confidence in American exceptionalism among younger generations is collapsing too.
In a poll of undergraduates enrolled in four-year universities across the country, only 23% of students were supportive of capitalism and only 54% described themselves as “proud” to be American.
How can a nation founded on individual liberty and free enterprise survive if our own institutions are raising the next generation to view these shared values as inherently wrong?
The uncomfortable answer is - it can’t.
It is past time for leaders on both sides of the aisle to prioritize a return to the educational system that our founders envisioned. Lawmakers must act to limit anti-American curriculum and the ideological poison being injected into our schools.
Americans must band together and put an end to this age of ideological “tolerance”. There are, in fact, things that a civilized society should not and must not tolerate. We do live in a world of inherent rights, wrongs, and objective truths.
Those who argue otherwise are fanning the flames of American Destructionism.
Ryan Walters is the Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Jason Dudash is the West Coast Director of the Freedom Foundation.