Reviews of PragerU Curriculum

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Comments & Feedback about PragerU Curriculum from Educators, Historians & Journalists

• Masquerading as a university’: inside the brazen rightwing plan to conquer American schools | The Guardian
  • In the fall of 2013, a silver-haired conservative radio host named Dennis Prager flew to Texas to woo a pair of rightwing billionaires. A few years earlier, Prager had co-founded a digital education non-profit, Prager University, which created snappy five-minute videos that promoted capitalism and “Judeo-Christian values”. The billionaires, fracking tycoons Dan and Farris Wilks, were big fans.
  • That money has brought Prager’s master plan to life. Despite its name, it is not in fact a university, but rather a prolific content generator that has often been accused of spreading misleading information. PragerU’s goal is to attract young people to its ideology, and it is increasingly making inroads in America’s educational systems.

• Rewriting Racism with Prager University: How the Modern Political Propaganda Outlet is Shaping Global Slavery Curricula within the American Educational System | Aisthesis Interdisciplinary Honors Journal 
  • Narrated by popular political “figures like Candace Owens, these videos provide a prime example of the prevalence of revisionist history in classrooms across the United States. In Florida’s middle school classrooms, this rhetoric has become more prominent due to the implementation of PragerU as an educational resource for students.
  • One of the key inaccuracies peddled by PragerU and similar organizations is a false equation of modern and pre-modern forms of slavery.
  • However, while it is true that slavery has existed in some form for most cultures throughout known human history, there is a notable distinction between these premodern and modern forms of enslavement. Both were brutal and torturous violations of human rights, but their motivating factors were drastically different, particularly in regards to the role of race and perceived biological inferiorities.

• Hegemony of the Right: A Prager University Case Study | Adrienne L. McCarthy Kansas State University Christopher G. Brewer Kansas State University
  • Wealthy conservative philanthropies have been investing in organizations to help shift policy in their favor. Using the pseudo-university “Prager University” as a case study, this ethnography investigated the link between wealthy conservative philanthropies and the production of ideology. This study found that PragerU has been successful in promoting a particular neo-conservative ideology that thrives on a foundation of neoliberalism. Additionally, it was found that these ideologies put forth by PragerU have similar, fundamental overlaps with extreme-right ideology. The context PragerU draws on mimics much of the extreme right-wing ideology in a way that is more readily digestible by ‘normal’ society and may ultimately make a person more receptive to extreme right-wing ideology.

• Prageru as a parasite public. | Ryan A Corso-Gonzales, University of Louisville
  • I argue that PragerU utilizes its extensive network to resist counterpublicity and influence the dominant public sphere. This thesis demonstrates the ways in which this PragerU utilizes its unique position in the public sphere to open new discursive areas and inject their political ideologies that drive hardline partisanship. The main tactic that this thesis focuses on is the use of the demagogic strategy of victimhood to persuade its viewers into believing its messages. Through victimization PragerU operates in a parasitic fashion to influence the dominate public sphere and resist counter publics. 

• Unpacking environmental misinformation: a critical analysis of PragerU videos | Taylor & Francis
  • This article critically examines the environmental content and the rhetorical devices used in PragerU videos produced since its creation in 2009 until 2024. PragerU, a U.S.-based conservative online platform, is known for disseminating information on political, economic, social, and environmental topics to both adult and K-12 audiences. 

• Critics blast adequacy of PragerU online personal finance course | Granite State News Collaborative
  • But many educators and lawmakers question whether Prager’s online course provides enough information and instruction to constitute a sufficient education in personal finance — or to merit half an academic credit, which is typically earned by completing a semester-long course. 
  • “There is a huge difference between a 60-hour semester-long course on financial literacy and 75 minutes of videos,” said John Pelletier, director of the Center of Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Burlington, Vt. 

• A conservative curriculum has been approved for public schools in eight states. What does it teach about Israel and Jews? | Forward JEWISH INDEPENDENT NONPROFIT
  
  • The narrator says “Israel is the only country in the Middle East that does not oppress its minority populations.”
  • Among PragerU’s advertised Holocaust education resources is a video for eighth graders and high schoolers titled “Israel at War.” The video features Prager himself in a fireside chat, with a section of the video titled “Israel ‘occupation’ is a lie.” The video also includes a message from Prager to liberals.“You are voting the opposite of what you believe,” Prager says. “You are damaging our country and the West by doing that.”The video description also includes a link to sign a petition “to condemn Hamas and stand with Israel.”

• How a conservative group’s videos gained a foothold in classrooms with help from Republican officials | NBC News
  • In one animation, two time-traveling kids ask Christopher Columbus whether he enslaved Indigenous people. Cartoon Columbus responds, “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed,” and insists it is “estupido” to judge him by modern moral standards. In another, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass defends the Founding Fathers for not outlawing slavery.

• Erasing Palestinian History: The Propaganda of PragerU’s Israel Series | Rethinking Schools
  • “Some of the most egregious distortions appear in the final two videos: “Zionism: Why All the Controversy?” and “Israel: Who Are the Indigenous People?” In “Zionism: Why All the Controversy?” the video claims, “Anti-Zionism is just one form of antisemitism,” conflating opposition to Zionist ideology and settler colonialism with hatred of Jewish people.“
  • Anti-Zionism is not automatically antisemitism. Anti-Zionism challenges the ideology of imposing a Jewish nation-state on land that Palestinians had lived on for generations and critiques Israel’s violation of human rights and international law. Antisemitism, however, is hatred targeting Jewish people solely because of their identity. By equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism, the video not only misrepresents the nature of anti-Zionism but also trivializes the threat of antisemitism by using it as a political weapon. It also denies the growing movement of anti-Zionist Jews in groups like Jewish Voice for Peace.

• Americans United Launches Investigation into Approval of PragerU Curriculum By Florida and Oklahoma Depts. of Education | Americans United for the Separation of Church and State
  • “Street Smarts: The Bill of Rights”: This video includes the “fun fact” that the literal words “separation of church and state” aren’t in the Constitution, but fails to explain how the principle of church-state separation is embedded in the First Amendment.
  • “Craftory: God Bless America Ornament”: This video presents Americans’ right to religious freedom as being granted by the God of the “Hebrew and Christian Bibles.” The video further claims “America was founded on what’s called Judeo-Christian values” that are “at the very core of who America is.”
  • “Leo & Layla’s History Adventures with George Washington”: This video includes an imagined meeting with the country’s first president in which he emphasizes the need for America to have “a religious and moral population.”
  • “Craftory: American Trinity Platter”: This video presents the phrase “In God We Trust” as one third of the “trinity American values,” alongside e pluribus unum and liberty.
  • Videos including “Guess or Mess: John D. Rockefeller,” “Leo & Layla Meet Christopher Columbus,” “India: Priya Overcomes Adversity” and “TBH History Russian Revolution: The Rise of Communism” praise several controversial historical figures or actions for their Christian beliefs or for spreading Christianity through colonialism.

• ‘Founders Museum’ from White House and PragerU blurs history, AI-generated fiction | NPR
  • The danger of projects like The Founders Museum, according to Brendan Gillis, director of teaching and learning for the American Historical Association, is that it focuses narrowly on a small set of experiences, making it seem like this is all the American Revolutionary history that we need to know. But, he says, “there’s many, many more people who shaped the American Revolution and kept this story going.”

Additional Articles

• Animated Frederick Douglass calls slavery a ‘compromise’ in conservative group’s video | NBC News
• Bogus ‘Edutainment’ May Be Coming to a Classroom Near You | Colorado Times Recorder
• Controlling the Curriculum: A Content Analysis of PragerU’s Children’s Educational Material
• How a conservative group’s videos gained a foothold in classrooms with help from Republican officials
• How PragerU’s Propaganda Machine Infiltrated Florida’s Schools
• ‘Masquerading as a university’: inside the brazen rightwing plan to conquer American schools
• PragerU: Coming to a Public School Near You?
• Our Schools USA Calls Out a PragerU Post
• PBS News Covers PragerU Edutainment
• PragerU, Creator of Controversial Social Studies Videos, Now Has a Toehold in Schools
• Rewriting Racism with Prager University: How the Modern Political Propaganda Outlet is Shaping Global Slavery Curricula within the American Educational System
• The kids are alt-right: an introduction to PragerU and its role in radicalization in the United States
• Unpacking environmental misinformation: a critical analysis of PragerU videos
• What Is PragerU: Controversial Conservative Platform Entering Classrooms In Florida And Oklahoma | Forbes
• Why critics are alarmed about the influence of PragerU’s educational videos
• Why Americans Can’t Ignore the Lies PragerU Content Tells About Slavery
• Yes, Prager U Wants to Indoctrinate Your Kids. But That’s Not Really the Point. | The Nation

PragerU State Approvals

• Controversial PragerU videos gain educational foothold in a handful of states | Stateline
  • In July 2023, Florida became the first state to allow schools to incorporate instructional videos with a conservative viewpoint from vendor PragerU into their classroom materials.
  • Oklahoma and Montana rapidly followed. New Hampshire in September approved the use of online PragerU videos to satisfy financial literacy requirements in public schools. PragerU and one state education board member announced it was on the approved vendor list in Texas as well, but other state education officials denied it.

• Alaska
  • Approved the use of PragerU’s content to teach financial literacy.
  • Bill to mandate financial education is intended to help address Alaskans’ pocketbook problems

• Arizona
  • Embraced PragerU materials for classroom use in 2024.
  • Arizona Superintendent greenlights far-right ideological materials to teach kids in public schools

• Florida
  • The first state to approve PragerU Kids as an optional resource for K-12 schools.
  • Florida approves PragerU resources for use in schools
  • The lessons Florida public school students will learn from PragerU Kids

• Idaho
  • Partnered with the state to provide supplemental civics education as of late 2024.
  • Critchfield partners with conservative — and controversial — curriculum provider

• Montana
  • Approved PragerU materials for use in public classrooms. A national nonprofit recently licensed to provide instructional materials to Montana public schools is sparking controversy elsewhere in the country over its conservative leanings and its products’ handling of topics such as slavery, climate change and colonialism.
  • Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen, meanwhile, says her state’s new relationship with PragerU will help educators recognize “how to teach things.” How a conservative group’s videos gained a foothold in classrooms with help from Republican officials
  • Conservative nonprofit obtains Montana textbook license

• Nebraska
  • Conservative PragerU’s ‘Founders Museum’ displayed at Nebraska Capitol
    • As lawmakers return for a new session, the Nebraska Capitol walls are lined with golden-colored, framed portraits of the signers of the Declaration of Independence distributed online by conservative nonprofit PragerU. 

• New Hampshire
  • Approved a PragerU financial literacy course for high school credit.
  • New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, in his appearance, explains enthusiastically that students in his state can use PragerU videos to meet a high school graduation requirement, noting, “It’s quality content — it’s highly engaging for the kids.” How a conservative group’s videos gained a foothold in classrooms with help from Republican officials
  • Critics blast adequacy of PragerU online personal finance course

• Oklahoma
  • Partnered with PragerU to provide history and civics materials.
  • Penn GSE Historian: Oklahoma’s PragerU Teacher Loyalty Exam “An Entirely New Level of Power”
  • What is in Oklahoma’s ‘woke’ teacher test?

• Louisiana
  • Brumley: Conservative group’s videos a teaching ‘option’ for Louisiana classrooms
  • Became the sixth state to sanction PragerU materials in May 2024.
  • In Louisiana and South Carolina, one of the approved videos to “contextualize World War II and the Holocaust” includes “Is Facism Right or Left?” featuring Dinesh D’Souza — an incendiary critic of President Barack Obama who was pardoned by Trump in 2018 for making illegal campaign contributions. D’Souza concludes the video by saying, “Fascism bears a deep kinship to the ideology of today’s left.” A conservative curriculum has been approved for public schools in eight states. What does it teach about Israel and Jews?

• South Carolina
  • Announced a partnership in September 2024 to offer optional materials for civics and financial literacy.
  • In Louisiana and South Carolina, one of the approved videos to “contextualize World War II and the Holocaust” includes “Is Facism Right or Left?” featuring Dinesh D’Souza — an incendiary critic of President Barack Obama who was pardoned by Trump in 2018 for making illegal campaign contributions. D’Souza concludes the video by saying, “Fascism bears a deep kinship to the ideology of today’s left.” A conservative curriculum has been approved for public schools in eight states. What does it teach about Israel and Jews?

• Texas
  • While PragerU claimed to be an approved vendor, state education officials have previously disputed the official status of the partnership. 

Resources

• PragerU opt out letter
• PragerU | SPLC