Classroom Indoctrination Is Alive and Well, Unfortunately

In Trump’s second term, there has been no scarcity of columns declaring a vibe shift, the passing of peak woke, and a conservative cultural ascendency. While I cannot speak to other sectors, I come to warn you that progressivism remains entrenched in American schools.

Republican lawmakers certainly passed plenty of policies demanding that schools “stop it!” In the early 2020s, 44 states introduced and 20 passed legislation to prohibit the instruction of fringe ideologies such as critical race theory in their schools. This policy trend culminated in Trump’s executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K–12 Schooling,” which banned any “indoctrination in K–12 schools” that was “based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”

About the Author

Daniel Buck

Daniel Buck is a research fellow and the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network at the American Enterprise Institute.

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In Trump’s second term, there has been no scarcity of columns declaring a vibe shift, the passing of peak woke, and a conservative cultural ascendency. While I cannot speak to other sectors, I come to warn you that progressivism remains entrenched in American schools.

Republican lawmakers certainly passed plenty of policies demanding that schools “stop it!” In the early 2020s, 44 states introduced and 20 passed legislation to prohibit the instruction of fringe ideologies such as critical race theory in their schools. This policy trend culminated in Trump’s executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K–12 Schooling,” which banned any “indoctrination in K–12 schools” that was “based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”