While recent reporting shows curricula vary widely across state lines, conservative education advocates claim major teachers’ unions are actively diluting the historical record.
Ryan Walters, former Oklahoma State superintendent of public education turned CEO of Teacher Freedom Alliance, spoke on the “Washington Watch“ program.
“What we saw right from the beginning are groups like the NEA (National Education Association), the teachers unions, came in with their guidance around to teach 9-11. And again, they gut the intentions of the hijackers. They gut any mention of radical Islam in those teachings. And it really becomes very glossed over” Walters explains.
Walters said that blue and red states alike have allowed union-backed materials to downplay American patriotism and shift focus away from national unity in favor of political agendas.
“They want our kids to hate this country, join the Democrat Party, and be social justice warriors... They do not want American exceptionalism taught in schools. They don't ever want America to be viewed as the good guy,” Walters says.
The debate comes as state education boards push back. Texas recently approved social studies standards explicitly stating that radical Islam motivated the September 11 attacks. While critics call the wording controversial, Walters insists classrooms must rely on primary historical sources.
“The left can be offended, but they can't change history,” Walters states. “Bring primary sources back to our schools, put them in front of our kids, let them understand history.”
This is not the only time AFN has reported on the watering down of the history of the 9/11 attack. A previous article recognizes a claim that boards of education and school districts in different states are approving and adopting curriculum based in Liberated Ethnic Studies, also called Critical Ethnic Studies.
Rhyen Staley, director of research for Defending Education and a former classroom teacher, says it paints U.S. and Western culture as “the perpetrators that led to the attack.”
Thankfully, Rob Tandy of Younge America’s Foundation said the initiative was created to fill a growing gap in America's classrooms, providing educational materials to students to explain what truly happened that day because of Islamist terrorists.
