Sarasota school parents must protect their kids from PragerU's indoctrination effort

Now that the Sarasota County school year has begun, the League of Women Voters of Sarasota County urges parents to pay even more attention to teacher lesson plans and additional materials made available on school portals.

Teachers statewide now have the option of adding newly approved PragerU Kids videos. In the League’s view, these videos clearly violate Florida’s new civics standards approved for use during the 2023-24 school year. The standards are a result of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ consistent call that education is too “woke” and should be free from “indoctrination.”

The standards’ guidelines are clear. The training that media specialists, materials reviewers and others received from the Department of Education in January 2023 explicitly states that supplementary material must be “without bias or indoctrination.” Additionally, materials should “[avoid] the use of any unsolicited theories or strategies that may lead to student indoctrination.”

PragerU is a partisan advocacy media company named after self-proclaimed conservative talk show host Dennis Prager. PragerU is not an accredited university and it publicly says the group is a “force of good” against the left.

Prager himself announced on July 20 that his company’s videos, produced by a division called PragerU Kids, will be a resource for Florida schools. This is the first time his company’s videos have been approved for use by any U.S. state.

Designed for indoctrination

The League of Women Voters of Sarasota County believes that most parents and voters would be hard-pressed to ignore the hypocrisy on display because PragerU videos are created for the purpose of indoctrination.

Prager proudly asserted this recently when he said “We bring doctrines to children. That is a very fair statement. But what is the bad of our indoctrination?”

PragerU is best known for short videos on history, news and civics. Patriotism is a common theme, as are gender and race. Some of the titles include “How to Be a Rational Patriot,” “How to be a Victor & Not a Victim” and “How to Embrace Your Masculinity.”

Following Florida’s rejection of the AP course on African American history, the PragerU videos on the history of slavery and race are irrefutably problematic. One video discusses the history of race relations. Two children travel back in time to meet Christopher Columbus, who tells them that the practice of slavery was “no big deal” at the time and that “being taken as a slave is better than being killed.”

In a video called “A Short History of Slavery,” a narrator tells kids that the most important thing they should know is “slavery was not invented by white people” and that “white people were the first to put an end to slavery.”  Is this truly the most important takeaway from a lesson on slavery?

The League can answer that question: The League believes emphatically that public education should be a place that allows the free and open discussion of ideas – even those with which we are uncomfortable. Further, it should be a place to challenge all ideas with evidence and debate.

Parents should be concerned

PragerU’s distorted take on history extends to science as well, according to Scientific American, a Nobel Prize-winning scientific magazine that has been published since 1845. A PragerU video tells students that fighting climate scientists is like fighting Nazi oppression; that wind and solar power pollute the Earth; and that recent global heat records are natural temperature cycles.

PragerU claims it is combatting “climate hysteria,” according to Marissa Streit, the company's CEO.

Dr. Theoni Soublis, an education professor at the University of Tampa, notes that PragerU's materials also include "offensive perspectives of cultural appropriations with specific regard to indigenous people of North America."

Adds Soublis: “Parents should be very concerned if these videos are being used in their children’s classrooms.”

Good governance is about accountability. In this case, the state of Florida is not following its own policy prohibiting indoctrination. The greater harm is to our school children, who are being deprived of a curricular framework that includes broad common standards developed by educational experts. How does PragerU Kids’ curriculum help our children adequately prepare for the world they are to inherit? It doesn’t.

In Sarasota County, because these materials have not been vetted fully by the district, if a teacher wants to use these videos they must get permission from the principal. If permission is granted, parents will receive a permission slip to opt out or in.

If a parent says no, the teacher must make other accommodations – accommodations that will be harder to make because the state has cut out a great deal of curriculum that was used in the past, creating a resource desert for teachers.

The LWV of Sarasota recommends that parents pay particular attention to this supplemental curriculum and if they do not want their children indoctrinated by PragerU’s unsubstantiated curriculum, they should insist on the opt-out provision.

Shawn Bartelt is president of the League of Women Voters of Sarasota County. Cecile M. Scoon is president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. Jill Lewis-Spector is the education action chair for the League of Women Voters of Florida and League of Women Voters of Sarasota County.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Protect Sarasota County's children from PragerU's indoctrination