The “Civics Secures Democracy Act” Threatens Education

From Day One, the Biden Administration has sought to inject its radical progressive agenda into everything the federal government touches. A new bill before Congress, the Civics Secures Democracy Act (CSDA), may give the Biden Administration the resources it needs in order to do this in our nation’s schools.  The bill threatens to severely undermine our children’s education by granting billions of dollars to the Biden Administration’s Department of Education, whose stated goal is to push its woke agenda into classrooms and the minds of our children.

At a time when parents have made historic gains to retake our country’s classrooms through grassroots campaigning and activism, Congress is set to sidestep these inspiring efforts by giving massive outlays – to the tune of $6 billion – to the Department of Education, which the agency will use to lure and bribe states into adopting its woke agenda.

If you want some clue as to how Biden’s Department of Education will decide which programs will be awarded grants and funding, look no further than its proposed priorities for American History and Civics Education, which the Department published in April this year. The first proposal is titled, “Projects That Incorporate Racially, Ethnically, Culturally, and Linguistically Diverse Perspectives into Teaching and Learning.” It references the “1619 Project,” – an ahistorical project of woke propaganda from the New York Times which demeans our Founding and America’s institutions – and quotes Ibram X. Kendi, self-appointed expert on “anti-racism.” Nowhere in this proposal can one find the word “Constitution” or anything else having to do with our structure of government, which should undoubtedly be the prerequisite for any proper American civics course.

Yet this is the sort of guidance the Department of Education will use to determine the schools to which it will award grants and funding.  States, aware of this, will be forced to make a choice: alter their standards of curriculum to ensure the money flows in, or stay the course and receive nothing.  It is a strategy of soft coercion on the part of the Biden Administration to enforce radical, woke curricula in our schools, and the CSDA will ensure that the DOE has the money to execute it.  At the same time, the standard of education in America will continue to fall and power will continue to be taken away from parents.

I’m familiar with this fight. Back in 2014, the Obama Administration attempted to coerce states to adopt its Common Core standards, much like the Biden Administration is doing today. I fought against these efforts by instead supporting legislation that provided funding to religious and private schools.  The Department of Education should work to ensure that all parents have good choices when deciding where they will send their kids to school, not work to impose a political agenda on our classrooms.  That was the Obama Administration’s aim during its tenure, and sadly, it is exactly what the Biden Administration is doing now.  This time around, though, they’ve gone even farther.

The architects of Common Core did not include history and civics in their coercive efforts – it’s likely they knew the sort of political storm this would engender among American parents.  But the Biden Administration, in its blind devotion to radical ideology and progressive politics, has taken those efforts one step further.  Now they’re not only seeking to transform the overreach and power of the federal government; they are weaponizing it in the fight over who controls America’s classrooms.  While many, including those of us at the ACLJ, assert that it is parents who ultimately should determine what their children are taught, the Biden Administration feels this power and privilege belongs to the federal government, a power they will use to teach (or indoctrinate) kids about critical race theory and antiracism.  We should call on Members of Congress to not lend their support to this disastrous bill, and instead, hold the Department of Education accountable for its anti-American priorities.

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