On Jan. 29, nine days after President Trump’s inauguration, the White House released an executive order to ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling. While the order signals a shift in history education, there doesn’t seem to be a direct impact on San Ramon Valley Unified School District’s curriculum.
The order directs schools that receive federal funding to follow specific guidelines for teaching history, emphasizing “patriotic education” which presents American history in a positive light. It reestablished the 1776 Commission to promote history education that aligns with these principles. Schools that include what the order defines as “gender ideology” or “discriminatory equity ideology” in their curriculum or teacher training could face federal funding cuts.
Travis Hodges, a senior from Monte Vista High School, has served on the SRVUSD School District Board since June. He feels that the order is concerning on a national level, but it doesn’t seem to affect the district’s approach to history education.
“The executive order is moderately concerning, but education has mostly been an issue where the federal and state governments recognize local control and give us a lot of autonomy to the district and the teacher on how they want to teach the course,” he said.
Julian Pont, an AP World History teacher at Dougherty, agrees.
“[The effects of the order] depends on where you are in the nation. It’s not going to affect anything here. This school, the administration, and the district in general are pretty progressive. But of course, there’s a lot of places that are kind of half and half and it can heavily affect them,” Pont said.
While the order may not be a huge concern at Dougherty, many educators around the state are concerned about the potential effects of this order, and others, that the Trump administration has released. The California Department of Education (CDE) has voiced it’s objections to Trump’s policies both on social media and through their weekly newsletter, CDE Today. In one of the newsletters, Superintendent Tony Thurmond addresses these concerns while encouraging educators to stay focused on the important world of educating children.
On Jan. 29, the CDE posted on Instagram that Trump’s executive order “does nothing but require the Secretary of Education to determine what federal education funds can be legally rescinded.” The post ended with the department’s defense that “it is against federal law for the White House to dictate what educators can and cannot teach by threatening to defund public services for students.”
The CDE’s response to the executive order indicates that this issue is not something to be taken lightly. As for Hodge, his main concern is the potential funding cuts for SRVUSD.
“There are going to be mass reductions in education grants and funding at the federal level, and that could be pretty impactful for our district, especially given the budget situation,” he said.
The state’s Department of Education provides some reassurance for this concern as well through an Instagram post, as they said, “School curriculum should not vacillate back and forth depending on the occupant of the White House, which is why federal law already prohibits the federal government from leveraging grants to mandate specific instructional content in schools.”
This recent order has sparked lots of discussion, both on the state and local level. However, it seems that there won’t be any major effects on the curriculum, specifically for the SRVUSD as classroom discussions are already centered around educational topics.
“Everything is purely just for the education of our students and exposure to new ideas and perspectives. I believe that regardless of what the outcome of new federal legislation or new executive order is, we’re still going to be having those conversations in the classroom because they’re purely educational,” Hodges explained.
