Oklahoma’s controversial new state superintendent of public education has launched a statewide partnership with a private faith-based video-education firm criticized for dealing loosely with history while advancing conservative talking points.
“I am thrilled to announce this partnership with PragerU,” said State Superintendent Ryan Walters. “This expansion of our available resources will help ensure high quality materials rich in American history and values will be available to our teachers and students. We will work together to find ways for PragerU to create content that will enrich the education of Oklahoma students.”
Oklahoma follows a similar decision this summer by Florida, where PragerU materials were approved as “supplemental curriculum.”
In announcing the Florida move, Prager CEO Marissa Streit said, “This means if you are a teacher in Florida you cannot be fired for using PragerU content.”
Most PragerU videos are 5 minutes long, fast-paced, full of graphs and unapologetically conservative. Current titles promoted on the website include “Was the Civil War About Slavery?” and “The Inconvenient Truth About the Democratic Party” and “Are We Living on Stolen Land?” and “The Moral Case for Mockery.”
PragerU, which is not a university and does not confer degrees, was founded in 2009 by Allen Estrin and talk show host Dennis Prager. Its Wikipedia entry says bluntly: “PragerU’s videos contain misleading or factually incorrect information promoting climate change denial. Historians and political scientists have also criticized PragerU’s videos for containing misleading or inaccurate claims about topics such as slavery and racism in the United States, immigration, and the history of fascism. PragerU has been accused of promoting anti-LGBT politics.”
Superintendent Walters has run into an avalanche of criticism for his push to reform public education in Oklahoma along the lines of conservative evangelical beliefs and Trumpian Republican politics. He counters that he’s fighting to reclaim Oklahoma education from the threat of “woke” liberals.
PragerU’s content took off after Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016.
A 2018 article in Mother Jones explained: “At PragerU, police are not biased against Black men, and man-made climate change is debatable. You’ll find takes on animal rights (against), the $15 minimum wage (against), the gender wage gap (doesn’t exist), and why the South turned Republican (nothing to do with race). Prager has hosted a few dozen videos himself, including ‘Just Say “Merry Christmas,”’ his take on the ‘war on Christmas’ genre, and ‘He Wants You,’ an apologia for men who ogle women.”
A 2020 article in The New York Times reported: “Last year, PragerU videos racked up more than one billion views, the company said. The Prager empire now has a fleet of 6,500 high school and college student promoters, known as the PragerForce, who host on-campus meetings and gather at least once a year for conventions. And this year, the company is expanding its scope. PragerU executives are signing stars of the young new right to host made-for-the-internet shows to fuel 2020 content, including a book club and a show geared to Hispanics called Americanos.”
PragerU’s agenda, the Times said, is “more pride in American history (and less panic over racism), more religion (specifically in the ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition), less illegal immigration, more young people laughing at people on the left rather than joining them.”
A review published in War Hawk News, student newspaper of Madison High School in Vienna, Va., offered a direct student assessment: “Right-wing YouTube channel PragerU specializes in whitewashing historical figures and spreading disinformation to attempt to sway young people to the right. And now it is trying to expand its audience to a new target demographic: kids.
“When conservative radio host Dennis Prager launched PragerU back in 2009, he began making short videos that were targeted at teenagers and college students. These animated videos are full of vibrant colors and graphs that contain little to no factual data and are voiced over by prominent conservative political commentators such as Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk. Prager’s goal is to indoctrinate young people who are submerged in left-wing politics and culture but still susceptible to the disinformation of the right.”
Related articles:
Oklahoma superintendent of schools says Tulsa Race Massacre wasn’t due to color of anyone’s skin
What really happened at that meeting with the Oklahoma superintendent of schools is worse than you’ve heard | Analysis by Lindsay Bruehl
Is it now illegal to mention the Tulsa Race Massacre in the classrooms of Oklahoma? | Opinion by Alan Bean