And this is new? I’m sure schools weren’t political hotbeds during civil rights politics, Vietnamese war protests, etc. Some states are required to teach creati

And this is new? I’m sure schools weren’t political hotbeds during civil rights politics, Vietnamese war protests, etc. Some states are required to teach creationism, and many mandate students stand for a daily ritual of the pledge of allegiance. We are only a few decades removed from requiring prayer in public schools. As a government entity everything a public school does is political and it has never not been so. I think you underestimate how often the kids are passing along political mantras and overestimate how often teachers are. Go look at GenZ TikTok and how it is massively political and in such a way that there is no chance teachers are driving it. I assure you kids don’t care about the quietly muttered opinion of their social studies teacher but are much more informed by their siblings, peers, and parents. The opinions get shared at school and absorbed by developing minds that don’t handle politics with much nuance largely because the relevant history of politics is never taught to them in school, cutting off at Vietnam War at the latest. And why is recent history eschewed in favor of covering the 1780s in boring detail? The desire to keep politics out of schools. And to some extent, the desire of Texas purchasers of textbooks to promote a reactionary view of the country. Covering the AIDS epidemic just leads to complaints about making Reagan out to be a villain or that teachers are corrupting kids with homosexualism. If kids repeat dumb slogans, can we blame them when they don’t have a knowledge of any modern political history except what they’ve gleaned from their parents cable news of choice?