California Schools Ethnic-Studies Plan: Bigoted Attempt at Social Engineering

Most parents don’t know that the public schools were originally designed to replace them.

The progressive education movement in the United States, which is almost solely responsible for the establishment and administration of our schools, has always looked down on what Ellwood Cubberley called “mere learning.” The movement’s luminaries have historically held that governments should use public education to renovate society from the bottom up, engineering the thoughts, values, and habits of the populace and making them more pliable and useful to the state. From the 19th century to the present, parents have been greeted with suspicion by progressive educators as potential rivals for the mind and soul of the child. When you dig into the history, it’s not hard to see why.

About the Author

Cameron Hilditch

Cameron Hilditch was a 2020-2021 William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism at National Review Institute.

Featured Tags

Most parents don’t know that the public schools were originally designed to replace them.

The progressive education movement in the United States, which is almost solely responsible for the establishment and administration of our schools, has always looked down on what Ellwood Cubberley called “mere learning.” The movement’s luminaries have historically held that governments should use public education to renovate society from the bottom up, engineering the thoughts, values, and habits of the populace and making them more pliable and useful to the state. From the 19th century to the present, parents have been greeted with suspicion by progressive educators as potential rivals for the mind and soul of the child. When you dig into the history, it’s not hard to see why.