Conservative propaganda platform PragerU announced a partnership with Louisiana’s public education system Tuesday.
The partnership would bring the number of states collaborating with the organization on school curricula to seven, including Oklahoma, Florida, Montana, Texas, New Hampshire and Arizona.
PragerU is not, as its name suggests, an actual university. It’s actually a media company named after its founder, conservative activist Dennis Prager, who has openly admitted his goal is to “indoctrinate” American children with a right-wing worldview. Many of its critics argue that its propaganda downplays or whitewashes racist atrocities committed throughout American history, such as chattel slavery and the slaughter of Indigenous people by white settlers.
PragerU announced the partnership via an exclusive interview with the right-wing conspiracy theory outlet Epoch Times. And in a video posted on PragerU’s Instagram account Tuesday, PragerU Outreach Director Jill Simonian, who hosts a children’s show for the outlet, discussed the partnership from an event called the Louisiana Teacher Leader Summit.
Reached for comment about the partnership, an official from the Louisiana Education Department told MSBNC:
The partnership includes our agency making a curated set of PragerU resources available as a supplemental resource for our Freedom Framework social studies standards and the state’s Celebrate Freedom Week. The resources are not mandated and are not included in the curriculum. They are an option that can be used by educators.
Simonian's video hinted at what students can expect from the partnership. “We like to teach about and honor American exceptionalism and, of course, the entrepreneurial spirit that built America,” she said in describing PragerU’s materials. I suppose “entrepreneurial spirit” is one way for a propaganda outlet to describe chattel slavery, which is what quite literally built America.
The assertion that PragerU’s misleading materials are "not mandated" doesn’t mean schools or individual teachers in states like Louisiana won’t feel pressured to use them. The Louisiana GOP controls all the levers of power in state politics, and it is actively trying to eliminate school diversity programs and lesson plans about racism and other forms of inequality. Beyond that, GOP lawmakers just sent a bill to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry's desk to require all schools to feature posters listing the Ten Commandments.
Louisiana’s already struggling education system appears to be firmly in the grips of ultraconservative Christian legislators now. And PragerU is a tool they’re using — to quote its founder — to “indoctrinate” American schoolchildren.