The National Association of Scholars endorses the model state legislation titled, The Partisanship Out of Civics Act.
This Act would advance the goal of rescuing public K-12 civics education from its subornation by radical activists. Radical activists seek to transform all education into political activism to advance “social justice.” Their favored pedagogy is “service-learning,” and they particularly focus on using civics education as a Trojan horse for their revolutionary project, by turning civics education, under names such as action civics, new civics, civic engagement, project-based civics, and global civics, into radical propaganda and vocational training for social justice activism. Revolutionary action civics has infiltrated all levels of education, and radical activists now threaten to impose it by state legislation. The Act is urgently needed.
The main idea of the Act is to prevent teachers from giving credit to service-learning or any other sort of public policy advocacy in history, government, civics, or social studies. The Act also protects teachers from being required to discuss current events, to advance one-sided discussion of current events, to affirm or undergo trainings using ideas such as systemic racism or gender fluidity, or to affirm or undergo trainings that use the bigoted race and sex stereotyping inherent in Critical Race Theory. Finally, the Act calls for a minimum number of class-years’ instruction in United States history and government.
The National Association of Scholars’ (NAS) mission is to uphold the kind of “education that fosters intellectual freedom, searches for the truth, and promotes virtuous citizenship.” The Partisanship Out of Civics Act would contribute to all three of these goals by rescuing K-12 civics education. While NAS focuses on higher education, we also wish to ensure that matriculating students are prepared for an undergraduate education. Students who have been transformed into social justice activists before they come to college will be incapable of dedicating themselves to the search for truth or the practice of virtuous citizenship. Moreover, we are keenly aware that undergraduate civics education, and indeed undergraduate education more broadly, is crumbling before the assault of social justice activists. We favor this Act not least as the first step of a broader campaign to rescue all of education, including higher education, from social justice activists.
The National Association of Scholars strongly endorses The Partisanship Out of Civics Act and welcomes it as a signal contribution to restoring American civic life.
Peter Wood is President of the National Association of Scholars.
Image: Capri23auto, Public Domain
